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[P] Negotiations, Part One - Printable Version

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Negotiations, Part One - Somnus - 08-22-2018

 

 

S O M N U S

 

Night falls, and with its arrival comes a visitor of Dawn.
 
An owl glides through the evening air, beady black eyes scanning the creatures of Denocte. She had never been to this province of Novus, not really and all of it was equal parts new and exciting. This visit, however, was not a social call. It was a delivery.
 
Clearly the owl had been traveling for some time. A few feathers sat ruffled or out of place, dust coating her cream and tan frame. There hadn’t been time for a preening during her flight, but hopefully the denizens of Denocte would show her a bit of hospitality after her delivery was made. A small leather pouch slung about the owl’s body, wrapped tight so that it would not come undone and fall. Within the pouch was a single scroll, inked with masterful penmanship.
 
’Take this, dearest Alba. You know what to do with it.’ Indeed she did. This was a task. A mission.
 
Through the evening skies she flew, until spotting her intended target among the market stalls. With the loud, piercing shriek of her kind did the barn owl drop, descending towards her target; Isra, the ascended Queen of Denocte. How fast word spread in such a large world.
 
With a billowing of wings did the barn owl land, taking roost upon the countertop of a warped market stall with a furious clacking of her beak. At this height she was a little below eye-level to the Night Court Sovereign, but the barn owl stared, knowingly meeting Isra’s gaze with brazen wisdom far too intelligent for a wild animal.
 
’Pop! Pop, pop!’ Over and over did Alba ‘pop’ her beak, before grabbing the small satchel about her to begin undoing the ties.
 
The message, once revealed and unrolled, was written in an elegant, studious script.
 
”Sovereign Isra of Night Court proper, well met;
 
Oriens’ wisdom and Caligo’s eternal embrace upon you. I pray that this letter finds you and your Court in good health. I have instructed Alba to deliver this letter in my stead, and implore that you treat her with kindness and tend to any needs she may have after such an arduous journey. Apologies that I cannot be there myself, but duty to hearth and home binds me here.
 
This letter is an invitation; with the mutual disasters spreading across Novus, on behalf of Delumine and the Dawn Court, I would like to discuss the possibilities of forming deeper relations between our two Courts. Far too long have Delumine and Denocte been estranged, and I would like to work together in order to rectify this, be it a trade of goods or a trade of personnel. Terms and conditions can be worked out should you agree to meet. We can exchange letters until a definitive time and place can be recognized.
 
Please allow Alba a warm place to rest, and return with her your answer.
 
Warmest regards,
 
Somnus, Dawn King of Delumine.”

 
Alba clacked her beak once more as she waited, watching Isra almost eerily as she read over the letter. Head tilting curiously, waiting and watching for some kind of answer, the owl stood silently.
 

 
xx
space

 
@Isra


RE: Negotiations, Part One - Isra - 08-26-2018

Isra of the written word

'A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness.'



Isra is far enough from the fires to miss the heat but close enough to still taste soot and smoke when she licks away the winter front from her lips. The broken market stalls do little to corral the wicked, icy winds and still she feels a faint touch of feverish hope blooming like a fresh lit pyre in her chest. It warms her some and keeps her bones from creaking in the chill when she moves between the stalls.

It feels like she could walk on endlessly, borrowing small apples to give to the wandering orphans that run like tender-footed wild things through the darkened streets. Around her the world is broken but  beautiful. At her hooves bits of driftwood shine white as bone on the gemstones of star shine that glint like dreams in the moonlight. Above the sky glows blue and green and it shifts in patterns that promise the world is so much more than the cells between her skin and the fire-bright endlessness of her soul.

When she first looks up at the rustle of wings and watches the owl dive swiftly through the darkness she thinks not of birds but of comets. “Oh,” Isra startles and whispers as the bird watches her as strangely at she watches it, as if birds and unicorns are not used to staring at each other underneath a forest of constellations. Already she's almost forgotten, between the fire and the grandness of night, that she's more than a slat-ribbed unicorn starving on the streets.

It seems strange to think a letter borne by an owl who watches her with eternity eyes should not seem very strange at all. It's stranger still to read that letter addressed to Isra, the Sovereign of the Night Court instead of Isra, the slave.

She reads the letter through with a soft smile, watching the owl more than the letters and wonders what stories might live below those feathers and in the winds that whistle through them. And when she reaches the end it takes her a moment to remember that she's read anything at all when she looks at the owl and speaks as if it's not an owl she's talking to but a comet that blazed through the sky like a moon. “I believe there's food and a place to rest in a rookery not far from here” Isra tries not to think of devils and all her old fears as she offers to travel back through the streets she once ran though like a fearful deer.

Almost shyly does she look at her back and silently offer the owl a way to follow free of flying, to perhaps rest her quite ruffled looking wings, before she turns and walks backthrough the walls and into the rookery.

And before she begins writing she lays out two bowls. One is full of small bits of meat, the other water and between the two a hollow nest of silk.

Her letter is filled with splotches of ink that fall into wistful shapes and splatter on the edges of her letter like black stars upon a sky a ivory. It looks nothing like a letter from a queen might look like. It looks like one writ by a storyteller who can hardly wait to reach the end of the battle, the end of the climax, the end where one takes a breath and starts another story so that the true end might never come.

Somnus, of the Crown, of the Dawn,

I fear that your letter has found me in a court torn apart by the sea and lightning upon which predators rode currents of storm-clouds like great war-beasts of the sky. We are hard at work repairing the damage and the night is full of fire-smoke as we burn away all the debris as we try to burn away all our sorrows and sadness with it.

(But oh! How they dance around the fires). I hope the whole word might see how 'my' people dance.

Take all my wishes and prayers that your court has suffered less, that all of Novus might have suffered less just so that my heart might not weep for all the world but only a small part of it.

I commend your choice to remain where you are needed most. Know that my gates are forever open now. You and yours are always welcome to come see the fires and the way the night sky might seem to shine just a little brighter here.

Alba will want for nothing while she's here.

I stayed briefly in your court after the mountains burned and I remember how the sunrise had never looked more lovely when it rose upon the fields of flowers that bloomed red beside the bed of a river. You have a beautiful home, I perhaps would not want to leave it either.

Talks of alliances of trade, citizens and perhaps knowledge (I hear you have a most massive library) would be warmly met. Our Regent will be on his way to you shortly, I believe.

He will bring with him an invitation.

I wont spoil the surprise but I hope we have a chance to meet in person soon. Perhaps you might bring with you a book and I will bring with me a thing that looks like a star and I will tell you a story of a universe that was borne from not blood but star-light.

All my wishes and hopes to you.

Isra.


When she's finished she rolls it up and waits for the owl to fully rest (filling the hours with whispers of bird-story and beasts made of feathers and clouds) before offering her the letter with a simple, “please.”



@Somnus