Legend of Ransera

Arvælyn had certainly been busy since coming to Solunarium. First it was the training and the learning. Then, when he took on the mantle of his birthright, he found himself ruling a realm as regent. Still learning the ways of both the culture and the basics of governance, he'd relied heavily upon his advisors. He was more likely to advise and consent to their proposals, rather than put forth any of his own. His regency was multiple choice, not open ended. He was given options and context and chose what seemed like the best option. But by Searing of 124 Steel he had long since learned the basics, and now he was learning more not just about governance, but about who and what he really was. He'd been tolerant, if not content, to wait for his cryptic paternal family to bring him more into their ancient and estimable fold and, slowly but surely, it had begun to happen. He was spending more and more of his time in the Thalamum Draconum when he wasn't about his work in the Palatium Umbrarum.

He was seeing less of Finn since their marriage, but Finn was busy, too. His consort wasn't constantly luxuriating in the thermæ, nor exploiting the royal exchequer on shopping sprees as others in his position might have done. He worked long, strange hours for Phocion, he had his family in the Luxium, he had a demanding deity who expected ambitions to be pursued, and Finn was pursuing them. Their lives were increasingly independent, albeit bound by history, oaths, magic and affection.

On the 5th of Searing of the 124th Year of the Age of Steel, Arvælyn quit his father's palace to realise that morning had already broken over the Luxium. It was hard enough to tell night from day in the Umbrium, but at least efforts were made there to shift the level of light emitting from the glowing globes and strips that lined the streets. The Thalamum Draconum accorded no such amenities, for its inhabitants were less concerned with rising and falling of sun and moon. What was a day in the life of a Greatwyrm?

He hadn't slept, but he wasn't tired. It was earlier than he typically began his day of toil and there were no calamities being broadcast into his mind by his mother, so he supposed he wasn't needed. Perhaps all he needed to do to find free time again was never to sleep.

Arvælyn took to wing over the core of Mount Sorokyn, where the buoyancy of its heat urged him upwards. Up he flew out of the mouth of the volcano to regard the upper city bathed in shades of red as the sun rose toward the cloudless sky. He was so unaccustomed to unscheduled time... to unanticipated moments to himself that, for a trice, he didn't know what to do with himself. Then he realised he should check on Finn. He knew his husband occasioned to sleep at the Luxian villa in which he'd housed his family when they didn't share a bed, which increasingly meant one of them collapsing into a cuddle with their already sleeping counterpart. In any case, he darted down toward the Aurecine District, sensing the attention of the diligent Luxian authorities, but he soothed their concerns with familiarity and alighted on the steps leading up to the door to the Sorokys villa. He started to reach for the handle, then grimaced at the realisation that he was a guest here. He'd never visited this place since he called it home and himself Kyrin's bastard. He raised his hand a bit higher to employ the doorknocker, then crossed his arms to await admittance.

Arvælyn shrugged, almost bashfully at being called out for his cautious formality.

"I do not wish to barge into the Viator household unannounced." He demurred, with a nod to Finn's parents. "I bid good morning to you both." His eyes darted about in search of siblings-in-law, but Ciarán was like to have been still abed, the prince presumed.

"It's been some time since I've visited this place and I should like to see how the gardens are faring under new stewardship." It seemed the more time Arvælyn spent with his paternal relations, the more decorous his dialogue trended. He used to doff his mask of formality behind closed doors, but more and more his face was forming to fit the mask... unmoving and aloof like the others in his family. It hadn't been a quick transition, but over the months of governing with little time to bask in marital bliss, it was so. Finn would know, by now, that the Platinum Dragonflight tended to influence its surroundings. Perhaps Arvælyn's frequent close proximity to the royal five was altering him through more than just whatever he was being taught in the forge that was the Thalamum Draconum.

"Might I borrow your son to show me around?" He offered the faintest of smiles to Mabon and Fionna, before taking Finn by the arm and allowing him to lead the way. He was genuinely interested to see the gardens in the courtyard. Hilana had taken such an interest when she first visited and he had little doubt her influence would be present. Perhaps there would even be marshmallow plants represented, not that Arry would recognise them if they were. He still had no idea what they looked like, nor how they related to the eponymous confection.

"Did you sleep here or at the palace? I... lost track of time in the Dragon Chamber, again."

Arvælyn nodded at the offered refreshment. He probably should have been hungry as he probably should have been tired but, for whatever reason, he was neither. Perhaps in due course he would take up the offer, but in the meanwhile he was content to stroll at Finn's side.

"There will be time enough for rest when I need it... I do not tire as quickly as I once did, unless I am truly expending energy upon magic or the like." Another change, though one Finn had little enough chance to mark in him. After a long moment of contemplative silence, Arvælyn addressed the matter that haunted his mind of late.

"You must think me cruel to abandon you as I have. I feel as though I have erected a gilded cage and incarcerated you therein." If he was fortunate, Finn would name it 'Sacrifice' and mark it on the list of boons for Midnight's Mother, if he was less fortunate, Finn was finding satisfaction in the other member of the deific dyad at a level Arvælyn himself could not hope to confer himself and certainly hadn't been providing of late. He let out a quiet sigh through his nostrils.

"Are you yet happy, Finn? Or, at least, content?" As Solunarian propaganda posited, they didn't have the happiest people in the world, but they had the highest percentage of people who were content. Rather a dispassionate way to look at thing, and Arry the actor would have balked at such unambitious pursuits, but Arvælyn the Princeps Draconum was increasingly favouring pragmatism over passion. Perhaps he was spending too much time around people for whom the passing of time meant so much less. He was beginning to forget how long a day truly was in the life of an elf... or even more so in the life of his all-too-mortal husband.

Arvælyn's eyes scanned the garden, even as Finn spoke his heart. Only when he actively sought Arry's eyes did they find him. It was easy to forget how they met and under what circumstances. It was a lifetime ago and, for Arry at least, that was more literally the case. He was literally a different person. A different sort of creature than he'd since become. Perhaps metamorphosis had been a kind of death for that person... the actor, the courtesan. There were certainly parts of that life he'd happily entomb and, after a fashion, he did. But there was also something lost that he couldn't quite put words to. It was only when Finn posed his final queries that Arry even realised that, perhaps, it was he who was feeling hampered... caged. Perhaps he'd only been projecting assumptions onto Finn, because it was his own life that felt lacking and he was loath to think he might be imposing that on someone for whom he cared so much.

"I'm not terribly happy at the moment, no... I'm content enough to do what I must, but this life..." He trailed off, shaking his head.

"I remember when I dreamt of greatness and portrayed it on stage. I thought I was capturing the character authentically, but I wasn't... It doesn't feel as grand and glorious in the day-to-day as it does in the pared down composite version. It feels..." He trailed off, breaking eye-contact to look down.

"In the early days when I was being acknowledged as a royal, my mother told me something that I don't think I took to heart... I don't think I could have during that fever dream. She told me that the higher one stands on the pyramid, the less happy they tend to be. It's sort of the Solunarian version of noblesse oblige, I think. Our Sacrifice for the good of our subjects. The lowliest servant is blissfully ignorant of the wherefore of their simple, satisfaction in life. I know the strings that are pulled, but I cannot let go and let them pull me, or the whole thing falls apart." He paused, pursing his lips.

"Sorry to orate in profusion, I... didn't know all that was rattling around inside of me."

Arvælyn stopped his gait easily when Finn urged him to. He didn't really have an aim anyway, in the physical sense and he didn't know what his aim was in the figurative. Hearing Finn's words and the clarifying sentiments of his Symphony, Arry nodded, comprehending.

"It isn't that I'm keeping secret Sacrifices close to my heart or dealing with some earth-shattering problem that has become my burden. That happens from time to time, but it isn't what I feel I've lost. I just feel like I'm... treading water. Life used to be an upstream swim with very clear banks I sought to reach, but now I stand atop a promontory and I can see for so far, but none of the vistas before me are places I aspire to go. If I were reared to this life, perhaps I would have a clearer sense of purpose beyond sustaining the pyramid... or perhaps sustaining the pyramid would feel more satisfying. Or maybe it's just as my mother said, and this is the burden of my rank. I feel... Restless. It was an adventure to get here, but adventure has given way to bureaucracy and politicking." He paused, considering.

"His Divine Radiance seems to dance contentedly upon the true needle-sharp tip of the pyramid, where I stumble on my lower tier. You know Him in ways that I do not, though I am conversant in His Word. You have borne witness to Him in ways I..." He took a breath, "Have not. Perhaps you have some insight into this?" It might have all been for show, he supposed, but there was an ease about Aværys and how He interacted with His lot in eternal life. But Arvælyn couldn't entirely grasp it. It fell through his fingers like so much sand.