Legend of Ransera

In Destyn's reckoning it was a lovely morning. Granted, Destyn's reckoning was not the most scrutinising when it came to such things as the loveliness of days. Gazing out his bedroom window, he found a grey sky to be no less beautiful than a blue one, and today's was the former. Some might have called this backdrop 'foreboding', but not Destyn. He was a creature who'd only recently grown accustomed to regularly dwelling under rooves. No, caves and canopies had long been shelter enough and he'd often shirked even those.

Dressing himself in beige, cancas knickers and a simple charcoal grey vest that had slits in the back for his wings, he tugged on a pair of borrowed boots and stomped his way down the steps of Torin's cottage. The smell wafting in from the back suggested that his friend and landlord was likely working at his forge, and there was no need to bother him. Lately, Destyn had been blessed enough with the coherent company of friends, that he didn't feel bounden to check in so often. And, with the threat of war having been quashed by an abrupt Deus ex Machina that felled Kalzasi's southerly rival with no need for further bloodshed, Destyn felt safe again to travel alone outside the borders of the city in the natural world that teemed without.

Once he was out the front door, the Fae jogged a few steps before squatting slightly to launch himself into the air. The thunderous beat of his feverishly flitting wings set the debris of the street swirling in sundry directions as he ascended above the city, and out over toward a wooded area he fancied to the South. The gardens within the city proper had allayed his need to be amidst the energy of plants, but even the weeds felt less wild in a curated garden. And there was something in the heart of the Fae that yet longed to be amongst wild things.

His thoughts preceded him to his destination. A glade he'd found, little trafficked by cultivated folk. It was remote, hidden and surrounded by thick foliage that would have been difficult for large wingless creatures like men or elves to traverse. There was a little pond he liked. It drew tasty bugs and funny little creatures with feral thoughts and simple intentions.

His mind was fixed on that place, curious as to what he might find there today. His eyes were cast down toward the woods below, not ahead of him and so he felt the door before he saw it.

"Ow!" He tumbled a metre or so, before regaining his wings and hovering up to see what he'd bumped into. Rubbing his head and wincing, he was surprised to find that he had not colliding with one of his usual obstacles, namely the clumsy, graceless Avialae who lacked the precise control Destyn himself enjoyed in the air. No, instead he found a door, tilted at an odd angle and ostensibly held aloft by nothing. Even his cryptochrome eyes could glean any magnetic fields in play, here. The curiosity soon overtook the soreness where he'd hit his head, and he tilted his head to mimic the angle of the door. Then, pursing his lips and glancing around for others who might be witnessing this strange phenomenon, he reached for the knob and turned it, then pulled it open.

The room on the other side suited the angle of the door, which seemed odd since the gravity on his side was at odds with its diagonal. But odd was rather par for the course, when dealing with the sudden appearance of wooden doors held aloft in the sky by unseen forces. He grabbed the doorframe for purchase, so he could fold his wings to fit more easily through the door and stumbled a bit as he acclimated to the new angle of the room. The door swung behind him, and his eyes followed it over his shoulder- catching sight just in time for it to slam closed. Turning his gaze forward to explore the new environs, he noticed another occupant seated across from him.

"Oh!" He smiled, seeming delighted by this unexpected turn of events, "Hello, Kynne. I am called Destynrael Dromlach’darach de Clann na Feithidí Uisce... Or, you know, just Destyn." He shrugged. The next suggestion caused Destyn to knit his brow and tilt his head in a gesture that might evoke thoughts of a curious songbird.

"But..." He pursed his lips, pausing before he continued. "How do I surprise you when I do not know what is normal to you?" He glanced, again, over his shoulder. "I was just surprised because a door appeared in the sky that led me here. This for me is queer. If, for you, this is normal, then I cannot guess at what is surprising. Perhaps..." He paused, "You will tell me of yourself, Kynne, and then I can, you know, later surprise you." He offered a friendly grin and gestured, "May I, also, sit?"

Kynne smiled, "Welcome Destynrael Dromlach’darach de Clann na Feithidí Uisce," uttered perfectly and without hesitation or stumbling. "Please, sit." He gestured at the chair.

"I suppose I have gotten used to the Doors appearing all around me. That's part of the Duck's charm. She apologizes, by the way. She did not mean to cause you pain, she's just not used to moving in the same way as us bipedals."

He leaned forward on his elbows, "I don't talk about myself often these days. Been so terribly busy building up my crew." He nodded, "A bit of a story for you, then."

"I was deep in the heart of Dalquia when I awoke, so many years ago now. I think. Sometimes I struggle to keep track of time. The people there loved me, raised me, taught me their ways, but I never felt as though I was truly part of them, no matter how much I wished to be. Still, they were good to me and will always be my first family." His eyes looked a bit sad, but a sadness he'd come to accept.

"I wandered the world for a long time. I've learned many languages, made friends in every corner and walk of life, but still, something always felt... missing."

A soft smile, "Then one day, a door opened for me at the bottom of a lake I was fishing in. It led me to this very room, with no one here to greet me. Well, not at first."

Kynne placed a soft hand upon the table, "You see, the Duck is alive, and she is special. She was lost too, her masts broken, her hull leaking, and on the verge of sinking. She asked me for help, in her own way. And so I did. For many years, I fixed her up, learned how to operate a ship such as her, and we've been traveling the world ever since. We've found others that were missing something in themselves, and helped them to find it."

A broad smile, "My normal? My normal is following the heart of every person on this ship and the winds that guide her."

As Kynne spoke, Destyn slowly stalked forward as he listened. His eyes started on the ostensible elf, but soon wandered afield of his handsome face to explore the surrounding environs. In his time amongst the city folk, he noticed that they were fond of naming some structures, like public houses, but rarely did they name their private residences unless they were unspeakably posh. So it was that when he first heard mention of 'The Duck', he took it for a tavern. His wanderings as he circled the room offered no indication of such, though... Perhaps it was a private room meant for travellers to lay their heads or an office for the bookkeeping, and yet his keen ears heard no revelry through the walls. It might have been closed, he supposed, as he didn't know what time it was wherever he'd ended up.

With his cursory assessment complete, he returned his full attention to the man.

"I understand this feeling." Destyn noted, meeting Kynne's eyes with his own tranquil blue. "I have made a new clan in Kalzasi, but I am not of Kalzasi... It is not, to me, home... though some of its residents are, to me, family." His eyes glassed over when Kynne spoke of the all-too-familiar sensation of incompleteness. He'd thought he knew such feelings in younger days, but that was merely the insatiable hungers of adolescence. Nothing like the void he felt inside after losing his clan to violence.

He spoke on, and Destyn gleaned something afresh.

"Oh!" His eyes widened slightly, and he froze for a beat, "The Duck is a boat!" Waterfaring vessels, like taverns, were constructs that civilised folk were wont to give names and gendered pronouns. It usually felt arbitrary to Destyn, but Kynne clarified that in this instance, at least, it was grounded. "A living boat..." He stepped over to a wall and gently placed his palm against the wood. He could commune with living wood as it existed in nature, and wondered whether The Duck exuded intention the way a tree might... or perhaps even like a more complex being.

He glanced over his shoulder back toward Kynne,

"I have, I think, feelings of, um..." He struggled for the Common term, "...kinship. Much of your story is as mine, except that you, it seems, have found your purpose..." He trailed off, leaving unspoken the tacit conclusion to that thought- which was that he had not. He cracked a smile to match Kynne's at his last statement- a direct response to Destyn's prior inquiry,

"That sounds, you know, very noble, but still I do not know how to surprise such a one." He chuckled a bit, "I can conjure no doors to startle you amidst your morning constitutional, as I experienced, and... Well, my connection to the aether has gone quiet, so I can conjure no spirits to aid me in the task." His smile faded and he tilted his head,

"I am sorry if I am, to you, a disappointment."

Kynne listened with attention and respect, his eyes on Destyn. He smiled playfully as Destyn realized that the Duck is a ship. There was something so wholesome and joyous in his reaction. And as Destyn felt at the wood of the ship, he would feel some deep, intense, and old feelings. There was a sadness, deep and aching, the shadow at the edge of the fog in a forest, spawned from loneliness. There was a splash of color, a butterfly against a tree trunk of joy at having a new family. A single ray of light cutting through a forest canopy of hope at the prospect of going home. And a new flower, just on the verge of bloom, at meeting Destyn.

Kynne nodded, "The idea of a purpose in life has always been one I have struggled with. Is a purpose something one discovers or something one creates? I've been the man who was lost trying to find a purpose, and I've met many of the same. But still, even when I think I've found a purpose, it never feels quite right. I don't think life is meant to be purposeful." A small smile, "Being with ones you care for and care for you, I think that's all that really is needed from life."

Kynne stood up, walking over toward Destyn, "Come now. Disappointment is a poison in the mind of the perceived. And not a world I dwell in. You cannot be, nor ever will be a disappointment to anyone unless you wish to be. You must give them that power over you if you wish to disappoint."

His hands rested on the back of Destyn's chair, "My asking of a surprise is not a test in which one can pass or fail, nor that one can do well or poorly in."

Kynne moved back around the table, "I have had this conversation with many a person, and on whimsy, I share or withhold details of what I ask of them, as a way for me to get to know them better. Just as some plants thrive in full sunlight, others flourish in the shade. For you, Destyn, I will share the full sunlight of what I ask."

He sighed a bit, and there was a moment of weariness there, "I've been building toward this journey for a long time. You are among the latest, and hopefully, final, group of people I'm asking to join on this quest to help see the Duck to her home. But I have to make sure each and every person, myself included, is ready for it is an impossibly difficult experience. One that might very well mean the death and destruction of all involved."

A soft, sad smile, "So those that accept the Door on Ash the First, to return here, will be taken from their lives, for a year, to survive together in a harsh, undiscovered wilderness, with nothing more than each other. Just as I did. Just as every member of the crew has done. This is to hopefully grant them the strength, the bonding, the camaraderie needed to survive what comes after."

His hands were out before him, "So I know that if you accept this, you will be taken from your family, for a long while. Unless you bring them with you, which has its own risks. But you can choose to not join us on this and that is just as fine and noble a choice."

Then a bright smile, "You mustn't choose now if you do not wish. But I think there's somewhere on this ship you might like to see. The Duck has many secrets."

A door appeared behind Kynne and opened itself. A hot, humid air rushed in, filled with the calls of monkeys and loud birds, a cacophony of animals and insects, and a hot and heavy mist rolled into the room. It was a veritable jungle beyond the doorway, "This is her forest, it feeds us and clothes us and brings us peace and air. Would you like to meet it? She grew it here from a single seed from her homeland."

The young Fae opened his heart to the Duck. If the ship would share its soul with Destyn, he would return the favour- His own sadness and trauma, tempered by the joy he found amidst newfound family and, above all, crippling uncertainty about the future. When the moment between Destyn and the Duck had passed, he turned to glance over his shoulder.

As Kynne resumed speaking, Destyn knitted his brow. For him, this was heady talk indeed. He'd grown so good at distracting himself from his larger problems, though he knew that was only treating the symptoms at the expense of the underlying disease. The notion of a 'purposeful life' wasn't something he'd been particularly conscious of prior to losing his clan and, perhaps, it had been Kalzasi's influence that had brought it to the fore in his mind. He still found it strange that people there believed their toil was tantamount to purpose, but still some element might have infected his own consciousness and he thought Kynne was right to question it.

"I do not feel very powerful, just now..." Destyn conceded in response to Kynne's talk of disappointment. He had, indeed, taken the prior request for a surprise as a test. Though he wasn't able to ply his Rune as he once had, he was still connected to the spirit world and a very spiritual creature. When a door appeared in the sky and led him to another place, there was a fatalistic implication that he could not deny. When the sole other occupant, seemingly more knowing of the situation, posed such a request there was a tacit potency to one such as Destyn who, even before he set foot on a strange ship, was out to sea, not to mention very eager to please.

Finally, Destyn claimed the seat about which he'd asked moments earlier, listening intently as Kynne cast his 'sunlight' over the scenario at hand. His crystal blue eyes were fixed upon the man as he spoke, unblinking as he considered. This queer twist was somehow familiar in its oddness. His life had become so routine since he'd quit the wood in favour of the cold, stony city. When he'd wandered the wood there had been more surprises hidden amidst the trees and waterways... And sometimes those surprises caused one to change course. Perhaps that shift would yield a bounty of food, or a particularly beautiful vista... Sometimes it meant one went hungry an extra few days or faced down hungry predators, too, but such was the gamble of leading an examined life. Is that what he'd been doing lately?

He needn't choose now, though. That was a relief and it showed upon his open features.

At last when he blinked again, it was at the sight of a new door appearing and opening to Kynne's rear. His widening eyes regarded the scene and his nostrils flared at scents familiar and unknown as they poured out with the mists.

"Yes, please..." He rose from the chair and walked around Kynne, stepping through his second enchanted door of the day, with even less hesitation than the first. He glanced over his shoulder as his boots touched terra firma, "Are you the captain, though?" He wondered aloud.

The Duck shared its own emotions with Destyn. It accepted him for what he was and gave in kind. And with the flood of emotions, glimpses of memories, visual memories. A proud tree, miles tall, standing guard over a vast swath of jungle. The joy of meeting Kynne, younger, a world wearied look upon his face. The joy of a growing family as more people came to the tree.

Then the darkness on the horizon, washing toward them. Panic, fear, desperation. A decision was made. Pain, pain for days. A loud thundering crash heard for hundreds of miles, and more pain. Suddenly the darkness faded, and a great ship was racing across the waves, a darkness at her back on the shore. Years of homesickness, of disconnect and loneliness. Of new love found in the freedom of the ocean, in the new people upon her bow. And then it was severed.

Into the jungle, Captain Kynne followed after Destyn, laughing, "Only to other people. The Duck is her own captain. I'm just here to help her speak for herself, and to keep her safe." The jungle before them was vast, with no visible walls or ceiling anywhere. Jungle trees formed a shaded canopy, sunlight trickling through. The ground was soft and moist, and the air thick with the scent of lively decay. Coming upon a tree laden with fruits, Kynne plucked one, handing it to Destyn. It was large, knobby, and yellow.

"She keeps us well fed, and this jungle makes her happy. A connection with her lost home." He plucked one for himself, biting into the soft flesh, a scent of a deep, tangy sweetness punching through the air. "And scurvy is a real problem, one we don't have nor need to solve with grog." He blanched a bit, "Some sailor traditions are just unpleasant."

He looked up as a bird of a thousand colors perched on a branch nearby, cacking at Destyn for attention. Kynne smiled, watching and waiting. After giving them the time they needed, "I am seeking to tempt you with this forest. I do not have to know you for long to recognize that a city is not your desired home. But know this, what I ask is dangerous. But you won't be alone, not now nor ever again."

If Destyn seemed intrigued by his surroundings in the cabin they'd just quit, he was tenfold more interested in the jungle surroundings into which they ventured. Cabins were rooms, after all, and rooms were, on the whole, orderly. They were designed for shelter and in many cases convenience or efficiency. Jungles, however, were not designed. They were not without their patterns, of course, being of nature, but they were loud in sound and colour with random elements and contrasting aesthetics intermingling in such wild abundance that they seemed to cohere. Destyn grinned broadly.

"I love this." He said, as he crouched down to listen to a nearby plant. It was wholly alien to him. His clan's regular route had never taken him through a proper jungle before, only the verdant areas of Karnor's more temperate climes.

"She speaks, I think, clearly enough to me." Destyn replied to the captain of some, but non-captain of the Duck, "But not all are as attuned to this kind of listening..." He said, stroking a leaf of the curious little jungle plant over which he was hunched. "So I understand the need for a translator." Rising to a stand, he gently trod toward Kynne regretting his rare choice to don boots as he carefully avoided stepping on the more fragile of the plants at their feet.

Kynne's words made Destyn curious as to whether this jungle was connected to the Duck or whether it was part of her. He listened for the sensations he'd gleaned from the ship though the din of sound and sense that was the jungle.

He accepted the fruit with a smile and registered a bit of a bonus to the boon in the form of a beetle scuttling across its skin. He promptly but down on that part of the fruit and grinned at the mingling flavours.

"I do not know who scurvy is." The Fae replied with a shrug. "Nor grog, but they sound like formidable beasts and I am glad to hear we need not face them down." He furrowed his brow and nodded solemnly, thinking of those devoured by these fell creatures he'd unwittingly devised of his own imagining based on nomenclature alone. Scurvy was a crook-nosed sea hag, and Grog a giant island troll who served as her arch-nemesis, rendering him a strange bedfellow to the hag's sentient prey.

"You wish to tempt me?!" Destyn's solemnity fell away in a flash, as his visage lit up. "That is so flattering! But, you know, not necessary. I feel that such an instance as this is, you know, destiny." He wrinkled his nose, looking almost apologetic for using a word in Common that sounded so much like his Valasren name. His eyes darted to the colourful bird, and widened to stare at it so his focus was wholly upon the animal rather than the fellow to whom he was speaking.

"I am only hesitant because of the family I have made in Kalzasi. I must, you know, confer with them. I do not wish to abandon the people who have cared for me, but... What is this endeavour toward which you seek to tempt me, Kynne?" His eyes darted briefly to the elf, before returning to the bird. The latter might fly away at any moment, while he felt more confident he'd have significantly more time to study the former. Besides, he wasn't as dazzling.

Captain Kynne smiled, not bothering to correct Destyn's description of scurvy. And it was still surprisingly accurate despite a lack of knowledge. He watched as the young man connected with the nature around him, far preferring it over his own presence. And Kynne was not insulted by this.

"I understand, I would not wish you to abandon those you care for and who care for you. The families we build and choose to be with are invaluable. And if any wish to come with you, you may certainly bring them."

As for the tempting, "I suspect that I've figured out why the Duck chose you specifically, Destyn. I think you should, after you return to your family, join us when the door opens to you on Ash the first. I reckon that if you spend time here in this jungle, listening in a way that so few know how to do. I think she wishes for you to hear what she has to say, to what this part of her needs to say, before we reach our destination."

He smiled, "There's secrets in this forest that I'm not aware of, and I've lived here for so long. Maybe she will share them with you. To help you during the initiation process. And you would certainly be able to help her, in your own, unique way."

A door appeared in the air behind Kynne, opening, "I have work to attend to, but feel free to stay as long as you'd like. When you wish to return back to your family, just think about the door and the Duck will open one for you." Kynne stepped through the door, looking back with a soft grin at the lad, "I hope to see you again soon." And with that, the door shut, leaving Destyn with the bird and the entirety of the jungle aboard the Duck.

It seemed as though Destyn had a lot to think on. In a strange way, some forms of chaos brought him comfort... At least the sort of things city folk considered chaotic. To Destyn their perception of chaos felt more orderly than the unnaturally ponderous focus they put upon certain things, such as gold and labour. He saw order in the natural world that they mistook for anarchy. They couldn't see the balance. To borrow one of their phrases that felt strangely apt, they couldn't see the forest for the trees.

"I will, I think, be seeing you on Ash the First." Destyn declared, as Kynne rendered his farewell. "I will step through the door. Even if it is only to wish you a prosperous voyage and then return to my friends." If only there was some means of doing both. That would be something he'd have to explore with Sivan and Torin. In the meanwhile, though, he was more than content to explore the current surroundings.

There was a kindred spirit between Destyn & the Duck: Commonalities between their two brands of alien as they were perceived in the civilised world. And, if the Duck could provide such bountiful boons as the present jungle, Destyn could not imagine he would ever be bored the way he so often was in Kalzasi. There was too much energy in such a place. Perhaps more of life than he'd ever been immersed in, and it was enlivening for one who'd recently come to know so much of death.

In a place like this, one was reminded of the cyclical nature of life. No, to his mind there wasn't much of chaos in nature. Rather, there was balance.

Destyn

Lores: 8 Skill Lores

Loot: None
Injuries: None

Points: 15, May not be used for Magic

Comments: Destyn is perfect in every way.

Aegis - 4 Posts = 8 Exp, granted to Norani