Legend of Ransera

Posted: **Sat Sep 10, 2022 5:39 pm**

She smiled at his comment about how he could have used someone like her there in Tertium. Truth be told, her elders, all of them. would have absolutely have lost it on her if she has been there and had been so bold to approach, much less speak to, someone of that birthright. But in the market, she hasn’t known just what rank he was, but the Elf was a Dominus all the same. She had a feeling he had probably seen some of that here, the way most Vasti would have diverted their eyes away and been much more careful with how they spoke, but they were having a good discourse, and Hilana’s brand of hospitality was simply very different from what was expected and impressed upon most.

When he said he liked both sweet and savoury, Hilana knew what to order. But she had wanted to make sure he had, because she knew some people that were not the biggest fans of deserts, and as someone with a sweet tooth... But she took a seat at the table with him, to the side of him rather than across so that way she could see things, too, without craning her neck all over, especially if someone approached. Besides, she didn’t want to interrupt his view of the cozy little restaurant. “Of course, Dominus,” she nodded her head.

Hilana listened with keen interest to his take on Tertium. Her own views of the place were sour, simply because of what it represented to her, but she could certainly acknowledge the beauty of some parts of it. Her eyes got quite wide at the mention of the Crownwyrm, and by the excitement there, it was apparently a very favourable omen to this girl. “That is incredibly favourable, yes! Are they not exciting? They are beautiful,” the Vasti agreed with him. “There is a Museum about the dragons in the Palatine District, if you have not yet been,” she added.

“That is so, yes. Vasti traveled long before the Elves came, and eventually, Vastium was built. But we still had those who traveled, there were tribes that never stopped. Those tribes have gotten fewer over the years, but the desert calls, and when it does, we must answer. Some of the paths that those clans follow are the original ones, my elders told me. They are passed down, the routes and places, from generation to generation. Each generation teaches the next, honouring the old knowledge and expertise of our ancestors, while adapting to the Sands as they change,” she added. “The Expanse is not always as cruel as it seems, and Vasti are often comfortable with it. It is where Orks would not go, and so we adapted to it, and we learned it.”

At the mention of such a story, her head bobbed again in the affirmative. “Those stories are very much true. Such things happen, but it is not as common any more, thanks be to the eternal strength of our Founders. I have seen them before, too. We were making a trip far along the River to meet up with another clan for the Frost Festival, which is a very big event for the tribes that live in the far country. We come together, we trade, we talk, and sometimes, we are paired off. But it is important for us, and many attend if they can. But the Orks came upon us, and there was a fight. They are vicious, horrible monsters. I do not think they know what soap is, or maybe they just prefer the stench of sweat and dung. But they attacked us, and we fought back.” She leaned in, her brown eyes completely serious. “They smell even worse when you burn the bodies,” Hilana told him soberly, in a relatively hushed tone.

At that moment, sensing an opportunity, the serving girl came by, looking rather nervous, and bowed low to Arvaelyn. She was visibly relieved when it was her fellow Vasti that spoke up, and what followed was a rather rapid fire exchange in the official tongue between the two girls. He would surely catch some of it, but there were some words that did not make sense as Hilana gave the names of the dishes until the serving girl bowed again to him and hurried off to bring the order for the table to the kitchen, and to get their teas steeping. Hilana settled back in her chair, the menu set aside as the serving girl brought a tray of tall glasses full of an icy-looking red liquid, along with an assortment of accoutrements to the table, spreading them out. Milk, sugars, both clear and a rich, dark brown… “To start, this is an hibiscus iced tea,” she told him once the serving girl placed his glass carefully by him. “Hibiscus flowers are steeped with proper black tea, but because of the hibiscus, the normal tea flavour is less pronounced. We often drink it in the morning, after making it the day before to let the flowers steep in it all night. And to go with it, this is something we call paxamas. It is a twice baked bread, of sorts, kind of like a biscuit. They can be either sweet or savoury; this one is almond and orange.” The cold drink was sweet, though not to the point of making teeth twinge, but the hard, crisp biscuit with the almond and orange helped to rein it in and counter it. “May I ask where you are from? Are there monsters like Orks there?” She asked him, then. She would wait for him to select from the plate first; that was simply natural.

Posted: **Sun Sep 11, 2022 11:52 am**

Arvælyn had to appreciate her enthusiasm, for it felt to him entirely warranted. He echoed it back, sitting upright in his seat with wide, attentive eyes and a broad smile.

"So beautiful! Exquisite! Words fail!" His voice grew a bit louder in his excitement at the memory and in the presence of such stark compersion. "Yes, I've heard of the, um... Museum Draconum?" He checked in to make certain he'd gotten it right, though he was relatively confident. He had, after all, expressed a keen interest in the so-called 'draconic dynasty' and their allies of antiquity. They had been dragons in the realm where he'd grown up, but between the tall buildings and their sundry ornaments there wasn't much of sky. If they'd chanced to have cause to soar above his little slice of the slum, he'd never opportuned to see one.

"That..." Arry began, knitting his brow in interest and leaning forward with his elbows on the able, "...I did not know." He'd researched Solunarian history for his role in Aværys Eternal back in Frost of 121, but those aforementioned outdated texts tended to focus on the grandiose tales of elves and dragons. What he knew of the Vastii was minimal. There was a little passage at the beginning of one of the books- No more than a single paragraph- about how the Vastii had dwelt the fertile lands of Northern Ecith, before Orkish raids set them to fleeing Southeast. At the end of the passage, it was said that "And the Vastii wandered the desert for some decades". The next paragraph picked up centuries later when the kingdom of Vastium had been established.

Indeed, the greater focus on the Vastii in those books had been that they went from oppressors of the elves to swapping positions and becoming their thralls. He knew it was said that Aværys and his sister-wife Varvara had cursed their former masters to bear a preternaturally ingrained sense of fealty to the Race of Re'ha. What wasn't much discussed in those texts was how the Vastii had settled Vastium in the first place and risen to foster a kingdom in their own right prior to the southerly pilgrimage of the Re'hyæans.

Hilana's explanation was, thus, quite fascinating to hear. Arry had been raised by a human. He still might have been half human for all he knew though he looked proper Golden and displayed no outward signs of his allegedly mixed blood.

Arry blinked at the talk of the conflict with the Orks.

"That sounds... harrowing." He sat back, as the serving girl approached, and lifted his head to incline it in an elegant response to her obeisances. He still wasn't used to that, and he did quite like it. He was quick to assume the princely role, when the opportunity presented itself- keenly aware that he had rather a captive audience. He did listen with care as they spoke, trying to focus on the grammar and the damnable conjugations as his tutor often bade.

"Gratias." He offered to both the girl for serving, and Hilana for her explanation of the refreshments.

"I come from Antiris. Orks are, as far as I know, everywhere..." He said, sounding apologetic about delivering the news to someone who clearly had more direct cause to hate the unprepossessing creatures than merely a few ominous bedtime stories.

"I grew up with a fear of them, because of the stories my mother told, but... I think she must have made them up herself, because I don't know anyone else who shared my anxieties. When I moved to Kalzasi as an adult, I came to find that many places in the North regard them with equanimity." He leaned forward to glance at the tea set and take up the cool, hibiscus drink to taste it.

Posted: **Mon Sep 12, 2022 6:48 pm**

Hilana, truthfully, didn’t know how much was known of her people and their history outside of Atraxia, so she was not surprised when he offered that he hadn’t known about something. The Re’ha were surely far more known; and to outsiders, they had to be more interesting. As it was, she only knew some about what was beyond their borders; most of it what she had learned from the traveling, from the stories, or from meeting and questioning strangers when they had come across them. She was always interested in learning new things, and it really had been perhaps the best way to hone her ability in Common. Still, she was happy to provide him with the answers to what she knew.

Harrowing. It was harrowing. That was the perfect word for it; because Hilana had been a teenager when she had been there and they had had that encounter, and she was absolutely certain she would never forget it. Even if it had been a good six years ago, she still remembered it. But her sunny countenance positively crumbled and she looked completely crestfallen, if only for perhaps a breath or two, when he told her that devastating news. Orks were everywhere, and everyone was FINE with it? What was wrong with the world outside of her home?! In that moment, any lingering vague thoughts and musings of exploring beyond the Sands vanished instantly. However, she recomposed herself. “I do not think that she made them up herself. We all have the same stories, all of the tribes. So surely, your mother knew them from here. Perhaps those beasts are just different here, then,” Hilana allowed after a moment’s consideration. They were still horrible, stinking creatures. And even if she saw them dressed up and behaving themselves, she would certainly think she was seeing things; or that they were under the effects of Arcana. “I hope that you never have to come across them. Our Radiant Solar Sovereign ensures that they do not come here, praises be to Her and Her Glory, but should you ever come across them beyond the safety of the walls, do be careful, Dominus, and be on your guard.”

She watched him with the tea, watching his expression as she sipped her own, trying to gauge his reaction to it. It was quite refreshing, the chill of the drink and the shaded building helping to have taken the edge off of the heat of the outside. The floral taste that Hilana had mentioned mixed with the sugar and tea and would be there on his palate. “Antiris is across the sea, to the northwest, yes?” She did look a bit pensive, like she was figuring out where it was in whatever mental map the nomad girl had developed. Either way, the devastation was gone and replaced with interest and curiosity. She was done dwelling on the subject of the nightmare creatures that haunted every Vastian child, at least for now. The Dominus that she was accompanying was simply far more interesting. “Was it a long journey to get here?“ she was curious. “Did you make it by yourself?”

Posted: **Mon Sep 12, 2022 9:10 pm**

"Indeed..." Arry's personal interactions with Orks had been few and far between. The odd shopkeep or bar patron in the diverse communities that haunted the Plaza of Jewelled Arches, where he'd made his whilom career. That felt like a lifetime ago, although he'd only left a few months earlier. Nowadays he was getting a crash course in the ins and outs of the byzantine expecations of this culture that had apparently birthed him 20 odd years ago.

Those Orks he'd run across hadn't been particularly atavistic, as he might have expected. They weren't slavering man-eaters sucking the marrow from the bones of children openly on the streets. If they did that sort of thing in Kalzasi, it must have been behind closed doors. If not for the stories he'd been raised with, he might not have found their tusks and leathery skins so off-putting and scary. Such as things were, though, Hilana seemed to vindicate his childhood fears and, this being her culture, it didn't seem like the time to set them aside.

"I shall take your advice to heart." He smiled, slightly amused at the vehemence of her case against the Orks and her fervent warnings to keep his guard up in their dread presence. He drew his tea up to his slightly smirking lips and took a delicate sip.

"Just so." He nodded once, firmly. For a foreign elf, he certainly looked at ease in his present surroundings. There was a regality to his deportment and a grace to his gestures that seemed to suggest he'd been accustomed to privilege wherever he'd been reared. This was, of course, far from the truth- But what he had learnt abroad of Solunarium was how to assume the mannerisms of his social superiors. And now his life had begun to imitate his art, insofar as those who numbered amongst his social superiors had significantly dwindled of late.

"It was rather long, yes... We took two airships- First to Auris, then Cathena, where we caught a seafaring vessel that conducted us to Tertium. We traveled by barge up the Vasta after spending a few days exploring the port, and were here in time for that strange Dread Mist event. I almost felt as though we'd brought the bloody mists with us from Kalzasi, where they're far from rare..." He plucked up a piece of paxamas, shaking his head.

"No. I travelled with my..." He paused to think of the Vastian word, "...amatus: Finn. He's a terribly dashing human minstrel currently making his rounds entertaining the Umbrium with his talents." His golden gaze was soft, and adoring at the talk of his sweet boy. "He hails from the Kalzasern countryside."

Posted: **Tue Sep 13, 2022 7:19 pm**

She seemed mollified that he was going to take her warnings under advisement. May he never come across them, though, as far as she was concerned. If Hilana spent the rest of her life without ever seeing another one, she would be happy about it. Which, of course, meant staying in Atraxia, but it was her home, and that wasn’t hardly a bad thing. It was only everything she had ever had.

The talk of airships triggered a memory for her of some years back. Guests of her father’s had mentioned them, when Hilana had been dragged from the work she would have rather have been doing to show around some foreign teenagers her own age. “Are airships common across the sea, then?” She was curious. And now her black and white python was on the move. Apparently he didn’t like the way she was sitting, because he was moving from along her back to her shoulders, curling and cooling there as his tongue flickered. No food here for him, and he was disappointed. She rested her cheek briefly on the snake before raising her head again, taking another happy sip of her hibiscus tea, the ice cubes clinking against the glass.

“The Mists are there as well? I have only seen them twice now. The first time was perhaps a year or two ago, at a distance, in the Sands by Tertium,” she admitted. “In Searing, that is the second time I have ever seen them.” She was rather pleased with the memory. “I climbed up onto the rooftop of where I work in order to see it,” she admitted. “Did you get to watch the dragons and the mages? Do they handle them as well in your homeland?” It was perhaps amusing that she had been excited about something like Dread Mists and watching the way the mighty Re’ha and their draconic allies had dealt with it… but had such a visceral opinion of Orks.

The way he softened as he talked about his partner made Hilana smile as she selected a paxamas biscuit, satisfied with the scent of orange. It would complement the floral note of the hibiscus in the tea, but she wasn’t going to be rude and take a bite while he was talking. They could be a bit loud, and it would not do to interrupt him or break up his tender recollection. It was quite touching, really, considering the rightfully aloof and dismissive attitudes of the Elves such as she was used to them. To hear this foreign-born Dominus talk about someone he clearly loved, well… it made him even more relatable to her than he had been, and she thought that they were lucky to have found each other. “Does he sing and play an instrument? How is he finding Solunarium?” She knew the last one was a forward question, but if she had a feeling she already knew the answer. As long as they were together… the where didn’t matter.

Posted: **Tue Sep 13, 2022 9:30 pm**

He bit into the paxamas, brow knitted thoughtfully as he did. His forehead relaxed as he smiled, approvingly with an "Mm!" by way of approval.

"Airships?" He swallowed. "Yes, quite! More common than Orks, I'll be bound." He noted with a teasing wink, as he took another bite. Common though they were, Arry had never been on one before the trip here. He could never have afforded it when he'd lived in Antiris, though it would have been far preferable to the open road he'd trod the many miles it took to reach Kalzasi. For so long they'd only been ornaments in the sky to him, as opposed to veritable methods of conveyance.

"Oh yes, I've seen the Dread Mists on several occasions. They never really waxed threatening for me... Kalzasi sits above the Warrens? Have you heard of those, down here? They're apparently a fell, chaotic realm that lurks beneath the North like an... evil Umbrium. I think I've heard that the Mists have summat, er... something to do with the Warrens, so we got them a lot, but..." He shrugged, "It seemed we were prepared enough that they never impacted me outside the annoyance of warning alarums to these keen, elven ears of mine." He took another bite of the paxamas, and shook his head.

"Mages, yes. Dragons... Well, maybe? But you don't see those as much in the North. They're rumoured to be around, but I suppose they're wont to hide their true forms." He supposed he could understand that. They would doubtless be hounded for attention from lesser creatures if they revealed themselves. He smiled, wondering whether the Solunarian dragons were just more narcissistic. But then, he supposed he'd heard they'd been a cagey lot for the past few centuries too, hadn't they?

"Yes! Finn plays lute, which he's teaching me, and sings, which I already know how to do. He's, um... I hope he's enjoying it. My family is able to give him a few opportunities that have allowed him to skip a few rungs on the ladder to success, and well... You know, he's exotic, he's good looking, he's got magic, so." He shrugged, "He does alright for himself. I just wish we had more time together. It's rare I have a few hours to myself, as I do now, but of course he's occupied, so... Here I am." He sipped his tea. "Do you have anyone special in your life?"

Posted: **Wed Sep 14, 2022 9:43 pm**

With his expressed approval of the Vastian biscuit, Hilana relaxed a bit into her chair and took a bite of hers, trying to keep the sound as inoffensive as possible, but she made her own little happy face as she savoured the cookie. She did take the teasing with good graces, though, grinning at him when he smiled at her. He understood what she had told him, and this meant she could relax and know her warning was heeded, even if it might have seemed strange to the elegant Re’ha.

At the mention of the Warrens, Hilana shook her head, her eyes widening, her focus entirely on Arvaelyn. An evil Umbrium. Underneath a whole land? “Do creatures come out of it?” She asked in a hushed tone of awe. She had never heard tell off any such things, and she was completely captivated. “People do not come and go from there, surely?” Her imagination could certainly come up with such things, though, but she would trust the golden Elf to set that record straight. “But I am glad that they are able to handle it well, too. Do the dread mists poison and taint whatever they cover if they are allowed to linger?” On the subject of dragons, though, the young Vastii considered. “The stories say that there used to be many more dragons here, and that the skies were full of them often. I wonder where they went, sometimes,” she admitted. “Perhaps they have gone to other lands now that we are awaiting the return of our Founders. Or they are waiting patiently among us for Them.”

Hilana found herself nodding as the golden Princeling talked of his Amatus. “In the Sands, we have a saying. ‘Where my Amatus is, I am home.’,” she gave him the Common version before repeating it in Vastian for him in the event that he might like it in that tongue, too, before returning to Common. “I think that you two are very lucky to have each other. It is clear to me that he makes you happy, and I am sure that you are his greatest Muse. I am sorry your partner is busy today… but I am honoured to spend this time with you, Dominus.” She had another bite of her paxamas to buy herself a moment to compose her answer to his last question.

“I do not, no. It is very common here that marriages are arranged,” she began. “Like is expected to stay with like, caste within caste. My father is an Equestrian merchant and he has no sons… so he exerts great control over his daughters. Or, well…tried to,” she smiled a bit at that. It wasn’t quite as bright as it had been, but Hilana had her head up. “Three out of four, he married off as he wanted. Myself, I am of little value to prospective suitors as I have no Runes, and I was raised differently to my sisters as I chose the desert and the Sands rather than the walls of Tertium.” She could still remember how much she had embarrassed Khyan, so Hilana was trying to be a bit more careful in what she said here.

But at the same time, the Golden Elf had been an excellent conversational partner thus far. And he might enjoy her bit of drama. “If I tried to develop relationships with those I met, and he found out about it, then I would be removed from that position and shifted into something else as soon as he did,” she sipped her hibiscus tea, looking at the red liquid before she set the glass down and returning her gaze to him. “I could not do as I wanted, even with the far roaming tribes and clans; as he would have exerted his influence to ensure that they would not accept me. He did arrange a betrothal for me in Glade… But he broke that off before it was announced because it was found out that that family was found to be trading with the Commonwealth. Image is very important here, and that knowledge coming to light essentially sunk their fortunes.” Her lips thinned briefly and she shook her head. “No loss, there, truly. I was thankful for it. I did not like him and he did not like me; but that is sometimes normal. My father sent me here so that there were no lingering connections. Since I came, I have mostly been studying and continuing my training. I am a herbalist,” she explained. ”If it happens, if it is Their plan for me, then so be it. But for now… I get a small bit of my freedom back, away from my family.” But even more so, it still came back to the Runes. Perhaps even more so here in Solunarium.

Posted: **Wed Sep 14, 2022 10:17 pm**

"I..." Arry was a bit embarrassed that he needed to pause to think on what ought to have been a simple question. He'd heard talk of the Warrens his whole life and, though much of the North was bereft of the horror stories of Orkhish hordes on which both he and Hilana had been reared, there were sundry scary tales of the Warrens. Still, he knew very little about them. Though he'd spent years sitting right on top of the alleged hellscapes, they'd never directly impacted his life.

"...I think they would, but Kalzasi is duty-bound to keep them at bay. They actually have an order called the Dead Legion, I think it was? It's actually rather sad. Convicts and other... sort of undesirables are sentenced to serve in the Legion, wandering the Warrens and slaying its beasts until they themselves are slain. I suppose it's a simpler version of your, er-... our Lex Agni?

"As for the Mists, well... Yes, I think they taint all they touch, but again- As Kalzasi staves off the beasts of the Warrens, so too does it thwart the Mists from advancing too far." He considered Hilana's musings about dragons, but he only knew what he'd read- Which echoed exactly the sort of vague, baseless supposition that she posited herself.

"Wouldn't it be something if such a day should return in our lifetime that dragons soar the skies of Solunarium en masse once more?" He offered, with a whimsical sigh as he sipped his cool, refreshing hibiscus tea.

"We have similar sayings in the North, and I have said so myself of our Finn." His mind recreated that sweet, beautiful face and he lost himself in admiring it, until the crunch of the paxamas brought him back to reality, and he bit into his own biscuit.

He listened thoughtfully as she spoke of her travails- Politcal, familial, romantic and otherwise.

"Family is such a queer thing." He mused, shaking his head. "They're all so very different, but they all achieve the same result of doing our heads in, hm?" He chortled grimly. "I know that I shall have to marry one day, but it's hard to imagine. I've never much fancied women-... I mean you no offence," He flushed, "That is only to say in the romantic sense. But that notwithstanding, even since I've been with Finn? He has hoarded my interest all to himself." He giggled a bit,

"Sometimes I think he'd prefer I fancied him a bit less, but to me, Finn is..." He paused to search for the words. Even in his native tongue they escaped him for a beat, before he found them: "...more than all the world."

Posted: **Thu Sep 15, 2022 11:02 pm**

Her eyes were positively enormous at that revelation. The Dead Legion. That did sound incredibly sad. Sure, the Lex Agni could go anywhere for a slap on the wrist to enslavement to death, but it sounded like once you were convicted… that was where you went. And in that case, death was apparently guaranteed, after the Gods knew what happened to you. And it was not quick. What if it turned them into some sort of monsters? Maybe it turned them into Orks. Hilana wouldn’t have been surprised. It surely must have. If Mists could taint and corrupt things, then surely so too could these fel Warrens. And by then, a new set of conscripts for the Dead Legion would be looking for you.

“That is the truth of it,” Hilana agreed. “I have learned over the years that family is only family if they act like family. I have had much closer bonds with friends than I ever will with those with whom I share blood. It is what it is, at the end of the day. You cannot pick your family… but you can pick your friends,” she smiled at that. Her friends were the ones she had missed, after all this time, and she thought of them often. When she looked at the stars, she wondered if they were, too. She had never felt like she missed out on a partnership because of the bonds she had made, but as she watched Arvaelyn’s face as he spoke of, and thought of, his Finn… she did have to wonder if she was. There was a passion here within the Golden Elf that she didn’t see often amongst couples of her own people. Sure, love could come these arrangements, but a love like this? No. This was something else entirely… and it was, well, wonderful.

At his comment about getting married, she nodded solemnly, only to laugh and shake her head when he assured her he meant no offense. Clearly, none was taken, by her smile and the laughter in those dark eyes of hers. Love was love, and you loved whom you loved. She knew not everyone liked the opposite sex; some liked both, some liked one, some liked none. His giggling was infectious, though, as she looked like she might join him in that mirth. “If it is any consolation, though, I am sure that you can delay it for a while longer. Maybe it will simply be a political arrangement. A duty. You will still have your Finn, after all. I love how much love you have for him. It is rare to see it here… but it is thrilling and inspiring,” Hilana admitted. It was a bold comment to make to someone of his status, especially considering they had only met, but he was so open about it… that she felt it was safe to make it. “For all of our traditions… even though they are important for the stability of our culture… I wish that we had more freedom in this regard. I think that we would be better for it.” Left to her own devices, perhaps she would have eventually gave in to her father’s insistence on getting a Rune. But as it was she was as stubborn as he was. Especially now that she could sense freedom from the yoke once more.

She was about to say something else, when movement of the serving girl caught her eye. She was bringing over their next treat now that the paxamas had gone down well, and from the tray, she placed a triangular slice in front of him. It was thick enough to look like it was from a fairly substantial pie, though the fact it lacked a crust suggested it might be a cake pretending, instead. Its outside edge had that diagonal shaping which suggested it was made in a pie plate, and whatever this was, it was a lovely golden brown colour, and garnished with Ruby red pomegranate seeds. It was delicately fragrant with vanilla, and there was no mistaking the sweet scent of honey. She also poured fresh tea, which had its own smell of spices and nuts, into cups for them. The first on its saucer was presented to Arvaelyn, as was proper: his status absolutely demanded it. She carefully collected the empty paxamas plate, and left the hibiscus teas when Hilana shook her head at her when she was looking at them. She curtsied to him again, and made her retreat. “This is what we call melopita,” Hilana explained. “This is a very traditional type of desert for us out in the sands, especially for herders. It is a cheese and honey pie, made with a fresh goat’s milk cheese. I know it has no crusts, but it has always been called a pie. Some people think it is a cake, so I suppose it is all in prospective.” Like the paxamas, this was thus far relatively simple fare. But the taste would hopefully make up for it. Sometimes it was the simple things that were that much more difficult to make. “This tea is a spiced tea. It has ginger, cardamom, and cinnamon.” The goal, it seemed, was complementing without overwhelming the slice of pie with its artful drizzle of honey that was now in front of him.

Posted: **Fri Sep 16, 2022 2:28 pm**

Arvælyn chuckled.

“The family I’ve found here is… Well, for such an arid desert, it seems to foster a cold breed of elf.” There stoicism and aloofness of gentility ran deep within the Re’hyæan race. They took their role as master race very seriously. Literally, they so often seemed to default to a grave expression, where people he’d known in the North had been warm and affectionate. Phocion only seemed to brighten when he was talking magic theory or kicking him around the sparring ring in the name of education.

“Ah yes. It has been emphasised to me that marriage does not necessarily betoken monogamy here, but… Well, if Finn ever bedded someone else, I think I would…” His teeth clenched, neck tensing at the notion as a flash of wrathful, monstrous green flashed over golden eyes. With new, grim resolution that deepened his voice he continued:

“I would do such things— What they are, yet I know not, but they would be the terrors of the earth…” Trailing off, he unclenched his teeth for a sip of tea, which seemed to soften his moment of gravitas as it slid down the length of his throat.

“I understand the need to propagate… to keep the empire strong. But I wish it wouldn’t force me to betray Finn. It feels akin to hypocrisy. I will have to emphasise how little I am like to enjoy it. Frankly, and I’m sorry if this is more than I should share with a stranger, I might need him to participate. It’s been over a year since I’ve bedded another. I’m quite out of practice…” He chuckled, swirling his tea. As the serving girl returned he downed the rest of it, to make room for its replacement. He nodded, considering Hilana’s description of the pastry and chuckled.

“Rest assured I’m no stickler when it comes to the linguistic distinction between cake and pie.” Gods how he’d missed being able to turn a phrase like this. Speaking with someone new in his old tongue was really just what the medicus ordered.

Legend of Ransera

Lost And Found [Arvaelyn]

Re: Lost And Found [Arvaelyn]

Re: Lost And Found [Arvaelyn]

Re: Lost And Found [Arvaelyn]

Re: Lost And Found [Arvaelyn]

Re: Lost And Found [Arvaelyn]

Re: Lost And Found [Arvaelyn]

Re: Lost And Found [Arvaelyn]

Re: Lost And Found [Arvaelyn]

Re: Lost And Found [Arvaelyn]

Re: Lost And Found [Arvaelyn]