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Time Has No Friends [Sivan & Destyn]
Posted: Wed Jun 09, 2021 6:20 pm
by Destyn
Time Has No Friends10 Searing, 121
He'd been told that time could heal all wounds, but it was hard to imagine when the grief was as ever-present and as potent as that which afflicted him. He didn't know anyone who'd suffered a loss like his and, though he appreciated their efforts to console him, he didn't really believe their maxims applied to his situation. His entire clan had been slaughtered, and it was his fault. He'd brought the wrath of the humans upon them through his misdeeds, and he was the only survivor of their retaliation. His mother had often warned him of the scorn many humans bore their race, but all the humans he'd met had been friendly to him. At least until they very much weren't.
These thoughts flooded his waking mind, and possessed the dreamscape he inhabited on the rare occasions he waxed exhausted enough that sleep claimed him. Since that wretched day, sleep was rare and offered no solace from the invasive memories and guilty musings that assailed him from all sides. Everything was a reminder. He was utterly wracked with it.
Destyn swung his legs over the bed and winced at a sting from the broken one. The Kalzaserns had performed a surgery and done their best to tend to his wound and a new splint had been bound to his shin with fresh bandages that morning. The physical pain was just another reminder. He ran a hand through his honey-hued hair and closed his fingers as he realized it was damp with sweat. Grimacing, he reached for the crutch leaning at his bedside and used it to push himself to his bare feet, before lurching toward the huge window overlooking the so-called 'jewel of the Northlands'.
It was strange, he thought. Destyn had never spent time in a proper city before, and it was awe-inspiring to see the breadth of Kalzasi from high above in the Cloudhaven District where he was provisionally housed, whilst his body healed and his mind malingered. Even knowing how many people dwelt below and, indeed, all around him, Destyn felt so detached from the world. So consummately alone. He glanced to a potted fern that hung nigh of the window framing the skyline. The plants were so quiet here, where the people were loud. Like birds with clipped wings, they were managed and manicured. They decorated as much space as they were afforded, but they didn't thrive as they would in nature.
All at once, Destyn was overcome with an urge to be somewhere more grounded in the life he knew- Even if that life had been irrevocably destroyed. He shifted his weight away from the crutch and onto his unwounded leg, crouching slightly and leaping forward out the window. He fell for a few metres and, though something in him suggested that he might just let himself drop and join his kinspeople in oblivion, reflex set his wings to pumping and he took flight.
He listened to the winds and aimlessly flitted lower- away from the vasty estates of Cloudhaven, and down toward where the commonfolk dwelt. He hovered over rooftops and kept his ears perked, until he heard the music of green things and followed where the winds wanted. Ere long, he noticed a familiar structure looming in the moonlight- It was where he'd been taken after the airship landed, so that his wounds could be treated more thoroughly. He hadn't thought much of the gardens in the foreground of the hospital, then, because he hadn't realised how aberrant that much greenery was in the midst of a city, but now he was drawn thence.
He fluttered down toward a fountain- a tranquil corner of the eponymous gardens that adorned the hospital grounds. The loose fabric of his robes whipped with the beating of his wings and the whoosh of the winds, as he lowered onto the weight of his good leg, and lowered the crutch to touch the ground before his other foot felt the cool tingle of dewy grass. His wings folded behind him and were lost in the folds of his satiny robes, as he lurched toward the fountain and took a seat at its edge, sighing lightly. He wasn't comfortable, but he was less uncomfortable than he'd been in weeks. He shut his eyes and listened to the plaintive garden's woes, finally sharing a moment with those who knew as much of grief and loss as he.
Re: Time Has No Friends [Sivan & Destyn]
Posted: Wed Jun 09, 2021 9:40 pm
by Sivan
Sleep had refused to come to Sivan even though he had worked long hours, studied more, and even meditated before attempting sleep. It was to no avail. He lived among his failures. IX remained inert, and they were no closer to ascertaining the source of Flower's curse than they had been months ago when they arrived in Kalzasi. The home his labors afforded them was always full of his failures. IX didn't move, and Flower was frightened to leave. So he left... He struck out north from the Plaza of Jeweled Arches and his humble, green-roofed abode. His sprites followed curiously, but he waved them off and they returned to his home where they kept watch and kept things comfortable no matter the season. Eventually, his feet brought him to the lake. He removed his shoes and let the cool waters leach heat from his bare feet. Not so very far away from the city, the nature spirits were more abundant, and they investigated him. Perhaps they could sense that he could sense them, though he didn't attempt to communicate directly with any of them.
Eventually, he turned east and walked until his feet were dry and paused to pull his city soft boots back on and trekked into the Commons, finding himself in the Tranquil Gardens. Perhaps he ought to bring Flower there. There were necromantic healers, to be sure. Perhaps they would be able to identify his curse, possibly even break it. The Dragons knew he was in over his head. But even though they surely took emergencies at this hour, Flower was sleeping back at home, and so he turned into the gardens proper, moved far enough away from the paving stones that the lamplight was mostly curtained off by falls of leaves and branches.
Sivan knelt in the grass and began to time his breathing as though it were music, bringing the tempo down and, with it, his mind. It was too easy to be full of self-recrimination. Many would argue that the burdens he bore weren't his to bear at all, but he had taken them on that was enough for him. Here, the world smelled green. As much as he preferred the comforts of civilization, there was that part of his blood that connected him with nature and it was calming in its way.
It might not offer explicit answers, but it offered a sanctuary of sorts, time and space to sit with his problems but be separate from them, to examine them from angles that weren't from within them. The flutter of wings was too loud to be an insect's, but the spirits weren't alarmed and so he wasn't. When footsteps were accompanied by the syncopated beat of a crutch, he remained in his light trance. The gardens felt at peace and so whatever was making the noise was no threat.
He sighed. A stranger in a strange land he might be, but the land itself accepted him. That was something.
Re: Time Has No Friends [Sivan & Destyn]
Posted: Thu Jun 10, 2021 1:13 pm
by Destyn
Time Has No Friends10 Searing, 121
To commune with plants one had to empty ones mind, which was a welcome state for the grieving orphan of Clann na Feithidí Uisce. Destyn had spent most of his life in the midst of flora, and once he'd welcomed the grievances of the garden, he found that this place was more of a vibrant verdant community than he'd realised- Even though it was walled off from the woods and plains beyond. Still, it was not alone, for pollen and spores travelled great distances and many of these plants had kin abroad of Kalzasi.
Ere long they pointed out the other figure visiting their little haven, and he directed his eyes toward a kneeling elf. They might have been cousins for their common features, though the stranger was ostensibly no scion of the Everwilds. He tilted his head and watched the man, as the gardenias gossiped but the voices of flora faded as the strange elf let out a sigh.
Destyn pondered whether he ought to flit away to find a more secluded spot, but he didn't leap to that action. He'd had good experiences with Elves in his travels. His clan had bartered with a few elven encampments and some elf merchants in Northron villages. He hadn't really spoken to any of Kalzasi's elven denizens as yet and, watching the man, he found he was no less curious about them than he'd been about the surrounding foliage.
He didn't know how long he'd been staring, when he realised the stranger was now looking directly at him. He blinked.
"Hi."
Re: Time Has No Friends [Sivan & Destyn]
Posted: Thu Jun 10, 2021 8:53 pm
by Sivan
"Hi," he replied. Surfacing from his light trance had been so delicate, he was almost surprised that he responded at all, but here he was — awake again. At least he wasn't awake alone. There was something decidedly foreign about his Common, obvious enough if an ear could marvel that a single-syllable greeting became a delicate triphthong with a hardly noticeable gesture of greeting.
Sivan stood carefully, brushing ineffectively at his dew-soaked knees.
"The trees, they like you." It was an odd statement, perhaps, but said matter-of-factly. His mind was still close enough to trance that it took no effort at all to see on the runic spectrum. He was startled to find a creature similar in substance to Flower, who lay dreaming elsewhere.
"I am Sivan Sunrunner," he said with a Dratori greeting, even though his Dratori surname sounded strange in Common, at least to his leaf-shaped ears. "I couldn't sleep."
It seemed a sufficient greeting and explanation for a chance meeting in a nocturnal garden. Though he hadn't looked too deeply into the slight figure's aura — he considered that rude — he had seen a funereal tinge to what ought to have been bright, a heavy sadness that seemed too great a burden for such slender shoulders. But it was none of his business, and so he was merely quiet and polite. The Fae weren't Elves, despite how closely they tended to resemble them, but they were creatures of the wild, and there was a kinship there.
"I... do you require assistance, falon'adahl?" For he was, in fact, a friend of the trees. It was not impolite to offer aid, at least. And what had that minstrel sung the other day in the square? When so many are lonely as seem to be lonely, it would be inexcusably selfish to be lonely alone.
Re: Time Has No Friends [Sivan & Destyn]
Posted: Thu Jun 10, 2021 9:12 pm
by Destyn
Time Has No Friends10 Searing, 121
"I'm glad." He replied softly, "For I like them as well." Destyn's Common was accented, as well, and his ear wasn't accustomed enough to any one dialect that he took note of anything unusual about Sivan Sunrunner's mode of speech. He'd spend his few years alive trekking all across the North, and the people he'd met on the roads or in the villages had diverse ways of expressing themselves depending on their region, class and other factors.
"I am called Destynrael Dromlach’darach..." He slipped into the pronunciation of his name in his Vallasren mothertongue, which was a lilting, musical manner of speech, but reverted to Common to translate: "Oakenspine." He wrinkled his nose apologetically, knowing the name sounded odd in the common tongue. "But most people just call me Destyn." He offered with a shrug that was barely visible beneath the flowing fabric of the robe that covered his shoulders and opened up to reveal the smoothness of his bare chest beneath.
He canted his head in the opposite direction, a somewhat birdlike gesture, at the question Sivan posed.
"I didn't think so," He furrowed his brow, "But perhaps you know better than I." He wondered whether the elf might have seen something in him that he didn't realise he was projecting. Perhaps he'd flown to this place in search of more than a communion with his floral kincreatures, and he hadn't yet recognised it. An aesthetic elf who'd been mid-meditation when Destyn noticed him, might have greater insight.
"I apologise if I interrupted your reveries."
Re: Time Has No Friends [Sivan & Destyn]
Posted: Fri Jun 11, 2021 3:33 am
by Sivan
"Destynrael Dromlach’darach..." He thought he did a decent job of pronouncing it, perhaps because his mother tongue and his father tongue were both derivatives of the same parent tongue as that of the Fae'ethalan if he understood the history of linguistics properly. He laughed quietly, not wanting to wake the birds. "Sunrunner rings strange in my ears." He pronounced it more musically in Rivach. "And were I in Sol'Valen, I would add Len'Myren. But names get so complicated and people in Kalzasi do not have time for that."
Sivan found himself curious whether Destyn sported bark along his spine, but didn't think it polite to ask. And of course, he second-guessed himself for offering help, if only because the other Fae'ethalan he knew was no closer to whole than he had been when they met, really. But strangers in a strange land...
"It is nothing," he said, dismissing the apology, though following it up with a polite, "thank you." Flower was not a normal Fae'ethalan, either, so he didn't want to make some social faux pas through his ignorance. "The meditation calmed my mind but I still have to walk home before I see if it will help me with sleeping. Or the city watch perhaps won't find me if I take a nap here, listening to the greensong. But I am not wise... I only and the trees and the sleeping animals trust you like one of their own and you carry a heaviness with you. Not my business, but that is why I ask if you need help."
That was a lot of words, and his Common was getting better. All the same, he reviewed what he had said in his head as soon as it was spoken, hoping he hadn't made some error.
Re: Time Has No Friends [Sivan & Destyn]
Posted: Fri Jun 11, 2021 12:34 pm
by Destyn
Time Has No Friends10 Searing, 121
"Oakenspine, too, is less than poetry." Destyn's accent made the 'O' sound in 'Oaken' and 'poetry' a bit more shallow than the standard Common pronunciation, but it felt somehow over-pronounced and deliberate at the same time. The lilt of his speech was also notable. There was a sing-song quality that affected the rhythm of his phrases in a way that wouldn't be phonated by a native speaker.
He tilted his head like a praying mantis, with his big eyes fixed on the elf as he explained his prior inquiry. Sivan's words were somewhat nebulous at times, and he registered them on a bit of a delay as he was still new to being around this much Common for this long. The mention of Sol'Valen alerted Destyn to the fact that Sivan might not be a native speaker himself, though it wasn't unusual for him to get a bit lost in the phrasings of native speakers, as well. Still and all, he felt he had the gist of what the stranger was attempting to impart.
"Heaviness." He repeated, nodding slowly and casting his eyes to the grass below. "It is my grief." It had been quietly roiling this whole time, but the distraction of the plants and then the elf had been enough to keep it out of the forefront. The flashes of memory shards hadn't invaded his mind for a few minutes. The diversion has been enough to turn his usual abject anguish into a softer, dolour that hung like a mist rather than striking like lightning.
"I have lost much." He furrowed his brow and snarled, "All." He amended, "Except this life." He touched his chest with one hand, fingers splayed over the bare skin revealed by the deep V of the robe's low collar.
"Maybe I do need assistance." He closed the hand on his chest into a fist, "For my heart is a ruin." The storm of his anguish rolled in like an angry cyclone and, to Destyn's surprise, he was doubled over in tears within an instant.
Re: Time Has No Friends [Sivan & Destyn]
Posted: Fri Jun 11, 2021 4:34 pm
by Sivan
Sivan was not what could be called good with people neither his own disparate races nor people in general. He hadn't meant to trigger a flood of tears and grief, though, from the violence of it, there was likely little he could have done to know the weight of it and the way it hung perilously over the Fae'ethalan's head ready to come crashing down at a moment's notice. He didn't like touching people either; at least, not people he didn't know. He didn't know most people. All the same, he was not without compassion. He stepped forward tentatively and rested a hand on the Fae'ethalan's back, mindful of his dragonfly wings — or so they seemed in the dark without close examination — but not feeling gratuitously for an oaken spine. Such curiosity was banished by need.
Sivan was not the sort who would be the first in a crowd to offer aid, but they had been talking and so he felt obliged. Not obliged, exactly. But he didn't really think about the why; only holding space for the grieving man.
The spirits gathered, curious. Many of them were not complex enough to understand grief, though they did understand pain. Their investigation proved that Sivan wasn't hurting Destyn, which only served to confuse them more. The elf attempted to put out a soothing aura, to keep the spirits from getting agitated, the better to keep this place peaceful and a possible refuge for the orphan. Perhaps it might soothe Destyn too in some small measure. Nothing could truly soothe pain like that except time and even that was more just a matter of learning to cope with it.
"I will hold vigil with you," he offered softly. What that meant was nebulous, but he would rather forego his sleep than leave this one to his own devices and his crippling loss.
Re: Time Has No Friends [Sivan & Destyn]
Posted: Fri Jun 11, 2021 6:12 pm
by Destyn
Time Has No Friends10 Searing, 121
He looked, momentarily quizzical, before he registered what was happening. Destyn had never relied upon the kindness of strangers, as he'd never spent much time in their company. His entire life hitherto the incident outside of Zaichaer had been spent amongst his clan. Destyn was young by human standards, but for a Fae he was little more than a child.
His eyes snapped from those of the elf at his side to the aetherial energies orbiting above. He blinked at the sight, and then regarded Sivan with even more bemusement. He wiped at his teary cheeks and lowered his hands to pull the lapels of his robe apart to display the Cardinal Rune of Summoning etched upon his sternum. The symbol would doubtless communicate his query more efficiently than the language they had in common, though neither with expertise.
"My life is now a vigil." He replied, grimly as he released the lapels and allowed the fabric to drape back down as it had earlier.
"But your company is most welcome, if you wish to remain." The sobs had abated, as the several surprises seemed to have momentarily distracted him and cast the memory shards out of his currently-fragile mind.
Re: Time Has No Friends [Sivan & Destyn]
Posted: Fri Jun 11, 2021 11:04 pm
by Sivan
Sivan didn't think the Fae'ethalan were like the faerie in stories, holding a man to the letter of his word with dire consequences should he break it, but he was keenly aware that he hadn't said how long he would hold vigil. He offered a twitch of the lips that was much like a smile, nodding understanding at the rune. It never looked quite the same from person to person, but he could recognize it even without his semblance.
"I have one as well," he said, then sat down in the wet grass, proving as good as his word for the time being. "It seemed to make sense. Dratori are already spiritwalkers..." That is, he grew up with the ability to commune with nature spirits. Through the rune, however, he could summon them from their own plane, and form bonds and contracts with greater, more sophisticated spirits and not only those of the natural world. They were certainly keen about the letter of a contract, which was why his progress was slow. He avoided infernals and eldritch horrors altogether, mostly taking tentative steps within the elemental planes, which were more closely aligned with the natural spirits he had always known. Better safe than sorry.
"I am also a student of world magics... alchemy, artificing. My master died while we were in another city of Karnor. I came here to study with his friend. It is not the same, but still I learn. My loss still hurts. A heaviness. Not to compare with yours, but I understand a little." He didn't know if he understood enough to make any difference in this person's life. He was failing IX, and thereby failing the memory of his good master. He was failing Flower. Master Jacun seemed pleased enough with his work, but he didn't like feeling a failure.
Suffice it to say, Sivan didn't know how to process his own feelings let alone help a stranger process his.
"Will you like to share your memories to me?"