The Tranquil Gardens were perhaps Destyn's favourite part of Kalzasi. Upon his arrival as a refugee orphaned by a massacre to the South, the Gardens had been his introduction to the city. He'd been wounded and so he was brought directly from the Kalzasern airship to the hospital here. Being a Fae'ethalan as well as a summoner, he was connected to things in ways most creatures were not, and so he recognised the unusual, potent energy that emanated from this place. He attributed the gardens themselves with contributing about as much to his healing as the tinctures, splints and bandages provided by the facility. The flora sang here as though they were growing freely in the midst of an open field, rather than spreading over a limited patch of land curated by the city. With the borders having been closed off in the aftermath of the chaos that was unleashed at Talon's wedding, Destyn was relieved to have a place like this within the city proper. Typically he preferred to fly outside the city and spend time in the fields and forests without, but the aptly named Tranquil Gardens offered a lovely alternative to that sort of solace that wouldn't flout the new laws and edicts implemented by the Iron Queen in her regency.
The young Fae donned a tattered pair of trousers that were shredded above the knee, leaving his slim calves bare. He wore a tunic that was likely fashioned for a young Avialae, which was convenient in that it afforded slits through which his wings could emerge when he unfolded them and took to the air. Though barefoot, his soles were relatively clean as he'd flown here right after bathing and they'd only touched dewy grass when he alighted at which point he just sat down with his legs criss-crossed and hummed to himself.
The shadow of an unfamiliar figure obscured the sunlight momentarily and he cast his gaze upward, squinting to catch sight of another winged figure- A strapping Avialae. Though momentarily startled, his expression softened into a cordial smile and he waved emphatically.
Pahoran’s last few days had been strange and confusing for the young knight, and because of it he felt the need to find some peace and calming. Normally he would fly into the air, and away from the city to were it was less noisy. The city was on lock down and at the moment even flying was dangerous. After some though he remembered the Gardens of Tranquility. So he put on his simple everyday clothing and visited the gardens.
He walked into the tranquil atmosphere and would have liked it if his cares had been washed away, but they weren’t. He was a lone here in the city. It was true that he had the other guards, but his family were all at the settlement, and he could feel through the bonds he had with them and they were as agitated as he was. They had just gotten there patron back and he had been taken. Pah suspected it was by the Imperium based on the pain he had felt through the link. He kept his expression clear but he remembered the pain that had been imposed up on his family.
He paused then as he realized he had come upon another youth. Pahoran was actually confront with someone with similar coloring to himself. The elvish blond hair, and the blue eyes, though this young man’s were a sky blue while Pah’s were an ice blue, both extreme colors not seen among humans. Both had friendly expression and features, though this man’s were innocent, where Pah’s were more welcoming. There the difference ended, while both had wings, Pah’s were white while these were like a dragon fly’s. Pah was broad from a life of training with a sword while this boy wasn’t as broad.
He looked at the young knight and greeted him. Pah but his hand to his breast and gave a slight bow. “Hello good sir.” He actually was interested to learn more about this winged boy. He wondered if he was an Avialea or maybe something else, but he wouldn’t impose himself on someone else mediatation so he said. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb you. I am leave if you would like.” His expression said that he wouldn’t if his company was welcome. It would be nice to talk with someone else today, and someone who wasn’t concerned about something critical.
Destyn smiled to the unknown Avialae and, when he returned the Fae's greeting, he replied with:
"Hullo!" Which immediately caused him to blink and tilt his head, as it registered that he'd already said that. It had been he who initiated this discourse, after all. "Sorry. I said that, didn't I?" He looked a bit sheepish about the faux pas, but he didn't quite blush over it.
"I am not- That is to say you are not disturbing me." Destyn unfolded his legs and hopped up without needing to use his hands, though his wings spread to help him balance. His eyes widened as they slowly travelled up the length of the stranger. From his seated position he hadn't realised how very tall he was. He knew other Avialae, but he still often forgot how big they were on average. He wondered momentarily whether he shouldn't make an effort to grow larger to fit in better if he was going to make a home of this city.
"I would not mind some company, if you would care to stay." He glanced down to the ground and rolled his eyes- seemingly at the blades of grass themselves, as he added- "Some company that can move without a stiff breeze, then." He blinked back up to the stranger.
"Sorry. I offended the lawn." He took a few careful steps toward the tall man, "I am called Destynrael, but mostly I am called only Destyn. You are..." He looked the fellow up and down, "Very handsome, do you know? Like a knight from a storybook. Is that what you are?"
Pah could see that his presences had thrown the young man off and made his nervous. He grinned at the young man as he apologies for repeating himself. The young man watched with interest as the young man bounded up and hesitantly invited Pahoran to stay. The knight found this young man’s hesitation lighting. There were people who weren’t grizzled warrior and weren’t people focused on blood and fighting. These were the people that the Dawnmartyrs were there to protect.
Pah felt his eyebrow raise as they boy appeared to be talking to the grass and apologized to it. That wasn’t something he saw all that often and made his wonder if they boy was one of the Fae. Not that Pah was all that familiar the Fae, but closer to nature was something that he had heard, but honestly he wasn’t sure how true that was as he had ever really talked with a Fae about it.
Smiling as Destyn gave him his name he nodded. “It is nice to meet you Destyn. It is nice to meet you. I am Pahoran, Pah to those who now me.” The tall man felt his cheeks blush Destyn’s following comments. No one had every just come out and called him handsome. Though the second part no one had ever just come out and said that, though he had on several occasions had people hint around the bush about that one. Pah looked into the other’s eyes and tilted his head as he pondered how to answer that. He was still blushing but he finally answered.
“I certainly try to live up to such legends. I like helping people and I am willing to stand in the way to help others.” His eyes were interested as he asked. “How about you? Do you want to protect others, be like the knights in legend.” One thing Pah was certain was that while he didn’t tell anyone he was a servant of Justice his bearing certainly was saying it. “It isn’t an easy road, frankly it is a grueling road.” Pah smiled then. “Though there is great joy in helping others.”
Destyn knitted his brow and repeated the man's name when it was offered him.
"Pah-o-ran." He separated each syllable, before saying it again altogether: "Pahoran." After he'd rolled it around in his mouth a couple of times he decided he quite liked it.
"This is a nice name." He said, "Very pretty. I like this name." There was a foreignness in his speech patterns. A sing-song lilt and a few little tells that gave away the fact that Common was not his mothertongue. Perhaps that was why he'd repeated Pah's name twice- to make sure he got it correct. Names, he'd learnt, were very important to some people. Getting them wrong could cause undue umbrage.
"Yes..." Destyn replied affirmatively to the question about whether he wished to help people immediately, but there was an uncertainty in his voice- as if it was just an initial reflex. Upon further reflection, though, he realised it was something he very much wanted. Perhaps a means to atone for the wrongs that led to his great loss.
"I am someone who has been helped." He noted, "If I had not been saved by your Shinsei, I would have been killed. But He rescued me from violence and took me here to the healing place in these gardens." His eyes darted in the direction of the hospital. A graveness shadowed his features as his eyes, now grim with worry, turned back to the handsome Avialae.
"But now I fear it is He who needs help. I do not know what to do, and so I pray to Him... for Him... But I do not know if He hears me." He lowered his head, sadly.
"I do not know if He ever did, but still I pray. For I do not know what else to do."
The young man, Destyn, spoke slowly Pahoran’s name trying to make sure he got it correct. “Thank you, I have always liked my name. I like Destyn. It sounds kind of elvish.” He asked curious to know more about this youth. His innocents was charming, but Pah could see that there was intelligence behind those eyes, there were also the hints the common wasn’t his first language which always could deceive others.
Pah’s smile faded slowly as Destyn answered his question about wanting to help others, and going on to explain that he had been saved and rescued by Talon. There wasn’t a lot of details in what happened, which Pah respected, he had his own experiences in life that he wouldn’t just tell anyone, and even if he would mention them he wouldn’t necessarily say everything that had happened. His ice blue eyes were focused on the young man in a focus interested way. Pah’s gaze drifted north towards the settlement, as he thought. His eyes were lost to a night not so long ago.
“I to have been saved by Talon.” He remembered the light and image of Acras entering his abounded temple. “I and those I loved.” He looked intently at the young man who then spoke of Talon needing rescue and that he prayed to him. He smiled kindly then and said. “I know for a fact that he can hear us.” His eyes looked into the distance again and hardened. “I am not sure how well he is able to answer right now, nor how clear the prayers are coming through but I do know that he can hear when we call on him.”
He turned back and spoke again. “My family has long honored Acras as he is sometimes known, and we have often called on him not in prayer but in song. I am convinced that when those who honor and need him call upon him together in song it is a more unifying form of prayer.” He looked intently into Destyn’s eyes. “Would you like to learn one of our songs. Would you be willing to join me in prayer, a prayer of our faith and trust in him. I think that might be the best way to help him.” Pah said as he remembered his own training with the medallion and the collar. Hope was the way to defeat that tool.
"I guess that I am kind of elfish, maybe? One of my best friends, Sivan, is a Elf and we are, I think, not so very different. I am, however, Fae'ethalan." He'd come to learn that his race were not well known in Kalzasi. People often asked or, he'd learnt, were too polite to ask outright and so they remained curious until he came out with it. His ears were rounded and he didn't exhibit any overtly plantlike features when he was fully dressed, so to many he would just look like a slender human until his wings unfurled and then they would be utterly baffled.
His eyes went saucer wide at Pahoran's revelation of having also been rescued by Talon.
"You have?!" The assertion that Talon could certainly hear their prayers made the Fae beam with joy. He hadn't known, but it hadn't stopped him, he just continued praying on Faith. Unlike many of the locals, Destyn had no real frame of reference for Arcas. All he knew was that a man who was more than a man commanded his enemies to yield and they did. He had looked upon the creature and seen celestial puissance. He didn't need to be told Talon was a god, he felt it, and he knew that deity's benevolence had spared him from a bloody fate- And so he'd begun to pray.
"I would like that, yes!" He exclaimed- his tunic tightening as his wings seemed to flex beneath it, with excited anticipation. "You will teach me this song and we will pray together?" He was thrilled. It felt more active- more useful, somehow, than his solitary beatitudes. It also felt good to hear the Avialae say that this would be of genuine service to Talon- That it wasn't merely something that comforted himself, as it often felt.
Pah nodded his head in understanding. It was still unique that Destyn had wings, but from what he understood Fae were more unique from each other then any other race. He nodded his head, “Thank you. I don’t how many Fae’Ethalan.” He smiled Destyn. “While I am Avialea, my mother was Hytori and so I have some connection with that group of elves.” He thought for a moment. “Though I don’t know how much my mother’s family has stuck to there elvish heritage.” He looked back at Destyn. “If you don’t mind I would like to learn more about the Fae’Ethalan.”
Pah wasn’t really sure how to respond to the young man’s question statement. He hesitated for a moment before simply nodding. “Yes, and I have had the chance to fight with him on different occasions. As well as general interacting with him before finding out about his divinity.” He said by general explanations about his interaction with Talon.
Destyn was eager to learn the song about Arcas that Pahoran knew from the Knights. He paused and then hummed the melody of the song so that Destyn would know the melody. Then he began to teach him the words. It wasn’t anything overly complex, it actually was a song that could be sung on the march and so was something simple but stirring. It talked about if they would give up on the concepts of justice, hope, and light, and them committing not to, and following Arcas into battle.
Pahoran had a pleasant voice, though he didn’t have any training in singing so it wasn’t anything spectacular. The song though could really stir the soul. Pah went through the words willing to go over them multiple times. After the first few times were he speaks them he will begin to half sing them. As they worked on it Pah felt a warmth in his soul, and send the thoughts out to Talon that this was for him. Once Destyn felt ready Pah would join with him in song.
After they were done Pah, smiling, looked at Fae and said. “Talon, or Arcas as his divine name is, represents, Hope, Justice and Light. Even though it looks like we shouldn’t have hope, we can’t ever give up on hope. I know I am not. When the city opens up I plan to go to my family and we will see what we can do to help and rescue our patron.”
"I, also, do not know many Fae'ethalan. Not anymore. I used to know a whole clan of them! My clan- But they are no more. Since I have come here I do not know others- Only me." He lowered his head, sadly.
"I am happy to tell you whatever you wish to know about my people, but... We are all very different. My clan- they were Old Order Fae. We tried to live as we did in our own realm, even though we were here. I was... I am from Ransera- I was born here, so I was not as keen to return to the Faewilds, but..." He shrugged, "These were our ways. I know little else."
Destyn's eyes widened even further.
"You fought with Talon?!" Destyn still had a bit of trouble with Common prepositions. 'With', as he understood it, could mean that Pahoran had fought alongside Talon or against him. He inferred the former, but didn't rule out the latter. Pah wasn't the first stranger he'd met in these gardens today, and the other had been very particular about phraseology, so he hoped not to offend his present company as he had his prior.
Destyn was an eager student in learning the song. The melody came to him with great ease. His mothertongue was tonal, and so it was a simple thing to learn so elementary a melody. The words came a bit more slowly, but Pahoran proved a patient pedagogue, and ultimately the Fae youth learned and retained the lyrics.
"Hope, Justice and Light." He repeated, "I would, also, like to help further these things. They seem very, um... Noble!"
Pah’s smile slipped as he listened to Destyn told him about the loss of his family. Pah wasn’t sure if there was a language barrier since Destyn seemed to be speaking fine, but the way he spoke implied that they weren’t alive is he no longer knew them. Pah put a hand on the man shoulder and squeezed. “I am sorry hear that. It is hard to loss those you care about.” Pah said his eyes sad. He listened as the young man spoke about his tribe. “So did your clan want to return to there original home plan then or where they just trying to honor the memory of that place by living the same way.” He paused gave a small smile and said. “Though I am not sure what the old ways of the Fae’ethalan is.
Pah paused as he repeated the sentence not sure what he was trying to get and then though he got the hint. “Yes I have fought on the same side as Talon against a few different creatures.” He said with a laugh. “Sorry I am a peasant and so speak like one.” As he said this it was clear that he felt no shame or concern. He just didn’t want Destyn to misunderstand him.
As they began to learn the song Pahoran was pleased that Destyn picked up the melody quickly enough. Though he also wasn’t surprised it was a simple one that didn’t really hold any surprises. The words took a bit longer but Pah was find taking as long as it took, he had raised by a family where teaching and sharing with others was considered one of the greatest gifts one could give another and he would mock those teachings and insult those loving teachers if he couldn’t happily help someone else learn something simple. Though it didn’t really take all that long for him to pick up on the words.
Pah listened as the Fae spoke of how noble those mottos sounded. He was quiet for a moment and nodded his head. “They are very noble, and the world always need those who are willing to fight for them.” He paused for a moment. “I fear that given recent events we are entering a stage of the world where hope, justice and other such noble sentiments are going to be tested, and those who believe in them will have to step forward and fight for those concepts and put there lives on the line.” Pah remembered the many lessons he had received. “I know that when the city opens up again I will meet up with my family and we will make arrangements to try and rescue Talon.” He looked seriously then. “Hope must always be freed from chains.”
