Legend of Ransera

"No..." Khyan conceded, "I don't know how all of this will end, but..." He pursed his lips and paused to part them only to gulp down a hefty swig of ale, before competing this thought: "...I know I've been acting as though it will all work out in my favour." He smiled grimly, "Just like everything has always, always worked in my favour." His dark eyes darted from Raithen's gaze down to the dwindling second mug.

"It's scary, and um... alien to think that maybe Khyan's comfort isn't the universal truth I've always thought it was." He bit the corner of his lip, and glanced off into the corner where the walls met the ceiling. "That maybe all the moments that have absolutely crushed and gutted me in my life were naught but a pittance... and that reality is glaring at me a big and inexorable as..." He searched that little corner of the room for the proper simile and landed on, "...the Crownwyrm." His eyes found Rai's and he smiled. It was genuine, but it wasn't happy.

"I hope that's all there is to the lesson, Rai. I hope that knowing I've been frivolous is enough. Because, by the Founders..." There were tears brimming now, "I will change from here. I will be... I will be someone different after this experience, not matter what, and I hope that's enough, but..." He shook his head and wiped at his eyes with his knuckle, "I don't think the world cares if I learn a lesson. That's just part of the lesson and, now that I'm learning it, I suppose I want good marks..." He trailed off.

"Rai, I..." He chuckled and shook his head, "Maybe later." Smirking he added, "Maybe after I'm drunk enough not to care whether you're sober enough to carry me."

"Maybe." Khyan conceded. He certainly wanted to believe that things were going to work out somehow, though things had never trended quite as poorly as they were lately. His eyes darted up from the table to meet Raithen's, once more. He ran the tip of his tongue over his top lip, considering the features of the Avialae.

Rai was very beautiful. He'd always thought so, though he was beautiful in that sacred, unattainable way. He knew that some people regarded him with such reverence for being a quarter Platinum, but his grandfather hadn't been descended from the gods themselves as Raithen was. Avialae were a rare sight in the city, which added a level of exoticism to the comforting familiarity of his golden elven features. There were several reasons why, for as long as they'd been friends and as often as his inhibitions had been down, he'd never actually, actively pursued Raithen for anything more intimate than friendship. It was an honour to be afforded even that by an Aværyan. To seek out more felt akin to sacrilege.

As the pitcher arrived, he finished up his second mug and wiped at his lips. His eyes danced down, and he found himself a bit self-conscious, now that he'd put aside his woes enough to remember that Rai was not to be taken for granted, but to be taken in awe. He smiled to himself, watching his own hands fidget anxiously on the tabletop as Raithen invoked the Founders in his case for Khyan.

"Your ancestors." He noted, not blithely. How odd it was to be sitting across from a veritable angel who suggested that his own celestial forefathers might want the best for Khyan. It was easier to believe a beautiful lie from such a source as that- Even if the Crown would have them believe Raithen's blood was polluted by otherness. And what did that make a boy like Khyan? It was no wonder people like his father spoke out and needed to be silenced severely for questioning that status quo.

"Rai, I'm..." He hazarded a glance to the face across the table, "...I'm really glad you're here. I thought I wanted to be alone tonight- a face in the crowd, but I think this was just what I needed. Just to feel, I don't know... connected to the world, to the universe, to your ancestors, even." He bit his lip, and his eyes fell to his hands, which paused their fidgeting to rest with his right palm atop the left.

"I want that too..." The words came out in a relieved sigh, and Khyan smiled heartily. "Very much." He added with a bashful emphasis, as he unclasped his hands- turning the right one palm up to grasp Rai's gratefully.

Even if Raithen's positive predictions proved faulty, Khyan might make the most of his final night of freedom before he was sent to the grave or elsewhere. As he'd mentioned earlier, he was learning from this whole experience and one of the morsels upon which the holy light of Aværys now shone was that he'd kept people at arms length for too long. Somewhere between childhood and adolescence he'd begun to mute his connections to other people. He'd come to feel that aloofness was part of his identity, but now that felt wasteful. Connection was all he wanted, just now and he regretted all the time he'd spent isolating himself from those he considered friends like some remote island or, more to the point, a secluded city surrounded by hundreds of miles of desert wasteland. Khyan had been a microcosm of his own realm but, like Solunarium itself, he now sought to open his borders to welcome visitors from without.

"I wouldn't have asked you, so I'm pleased you offered." Khyan admitted. It wasn't just that he was too proud, it was also that Raithen was what he was. Khyan certainly fell into the former camp in regard to perception of Rai. He was disarming enough that one could forget, but his wings were a constant reminder of otherness. Even if they weren't part and parcel to the sort of otherness that made him an object of reverence, they still brought it to mind.

"Maybe it can be a watershed night for the both of us." He suggested, hopefully. "We're both, after all, in the midst of transitions. Yours is, perhaps, more hopeful..." Though going from working for the Crown to working for a mercenary band didn't seem like upward mobility on the surface, it was Raithen's choice, "But still. We can use celebrating your thing to distract from my thing, yeah?" He squeezed Rai's hand, and half smiled shyly.

Khyan might have been more tan than Rai was accustomed to seeing, for having spent so much time lately in the open air of the High Court. All things revealed themselves beneath the radiance of an Atraxian sun, it was believed, and so the courtroom was an arena not like those in which Solunarium's other bloodsports were played. In spite of all this, at Raithen's words the young Patrician blushed enough that it was visible on a visage with an olive base made bronzer by the blazing solar orb.

Was Rai flirting? Khyan had been, even if he'd couched it in such a way as to be plausibly deniable. If he wouldn't openly ask for Raithen's time and attention, he certainly wasn't going to ask for his heavenly body. Facing his mortality had made Khyan bolder than he'd been in the past, but he still had his limits as well as his pride.

He occupied his free hand in receiving the proffered toast and raising the mug to his lips. Perhaps with enough ale, he might grow bolder still ere his final night was through. But it would be up to Rai as to whether that would be necessary. Ideally, body language and cautious flirtation would be enough to guide them down the path of most diversion, but that remained to be seen.

His flesh, however, betrayed more than his tongue as goosepimples pricked up along his arms at Raithen's gentle stroke of his wrist. In a moment of such high stakes, Khyan felt more deeply than usual. With one evening left to him, the stakes had never been greater and so neither had his affections for the golden angel across from him.

"Did you want to spend all night in this taberna, or did you have other designs post-pitcher?"

Khyan smiled, glancing down and shaking his head. Even in his current circumstances, he lowered his voice to make this jest:

"A human king in Solunarium? Perish the thought." But he took Raithen's point. It was an open offer, and a generous one. If he was to have on last night, he'd spend it like a magnatus in the esteem of an Aværyan. He drained his mug as he considered the options Rai presented, and poured another round from the pitcher for them both.

"A rooftop sounds nice," He considered, casting his eyes to a window and pursing his lips, "And yet..." A rooftop would overlook the city, sure, but the city lay in the shadow of the hungry mountain that might soon consume him. That stark reminder might well inhibit the level of diversion he sought for this watershed evening.

"Perhaps not..." Raithen had offered his own quarters, which was quite tempting, but even explicitly offered it felt indelicate to request. Moreover, part of him wanted to be free of the constraints of walls. A bit of a quandary, that... He wanted to be outside, but out of view of the Mount Sorokyn.

"The Umbrium sounds nice..." He decided. It was spacious enough to feel like it was out-of-doors, and it would feel like the night never ended for as long as they stayed in its depths. Even when the sun began to rise, he might be able to forget that a new day was dawning for a little longer.

"But somewhere quiet, I think..." His own family kept a villa in the Undercity, which became their main house when the sovereign was Moonborn, though that hadn't happened in living memory for any of the contemporary Nykara. "A rooftop in the Umbrium would be ideal!" Finally he'd come to it, and his eyes lit up accordingly.