It was early in the morning, and much of Delumine laid in the long shadow of Veneror Mountain.
A boy (too old to rightfully be called a boy, but a boy nonetheless) with coal black wings soars high above his kingdom. Fog enshrouded the banks of the river, a thick fog that was beautiful seen from above, or from its thinning edges, but so very eerie to be caught in the middle of. It had the tendency of trapping and stretching sound, so that the river at its heart echoed throughout the valley.
Near the border of the fog walks a mare. At first glance, he can tell she's a soldier on patrol by the way she walks, comfortable but focused, like she knows exactly where she's going, exactly which steps to take-- like she's done this before, many times. She probably has, but not often in the morning-- surely he would have noticed her before.
Mateo drops in elevation to get a closer look at the mare. There was no rhyme or reason to his curiosity, other than the vague, unwarranted feeling that early mornings in Delumine were his, his alone, and anyone else awake was his business, whether they liked it or not. "Good morning!" he calls out before he swoops low and lands gracefully just a few lengths in front and to the side of her. "Mind if I join you?" He shuffles his feet in place, waiting for her to catch up. From the ground, even with the fog muffling some of her features, he quickly recognizes her. "Maerys, right?" Mateo had taken to watching the soldiers in training-- their movements were not unlike a dance, once you had the eye for it. There was repetition, of course, the same repetition at the heart of every dance, but there was also improvisation. And where there was a dance, there was music-- even if the dancers did not know it was there.
Of course, familiarizing himself with the population, especially the soldiers, was a matter of self preservation. If one could not fight, it was good to have friends that did. "I'm Mateo. I've seen you training." He remembers inquiring about the tall newcomer who did not much look like a soldier. Someone had told him that she talked funny, but moved nicely, and they gave him a name with similar letters to his own, but a completely different sound. His name ended in an O, introspective and closed, but hers... Maerys reminded him of a bird rising in flight, catching the ocean wind in its feathers.
"So how is Dawn Court treating you? Is it to your liking?" Mateo was ever the helpful boy, even to the most complete of strangers.
she was powerful not because she wasn't scared,
but because she went on strongly despite her fear.
When the color had withered from daytime and the scene had become a pencil drawing, a treasure on the easel of the creator, she waited for it to wholly fade to black and arise anew. It was as if each nightfall were the curtains closing and the dawn was their opening each day. While most dreamed through the metamorphic change from duskiness to light, Maerys rose early to witness the rebirth of sunshine, to see how the pencil sketch would become a far superior painting to anything witnessed previously. Where the blackness had once seemed unyielding, a fine silvery mist lingered in its place as boughs of sunlight filtered between the peaks of eastern mountains and played a daft game with the shadows before her eyes. Within a scanty amount of time, birds would be bouncing in the branches as merchants and wanderers made their way into Dawn Court to conduct their business and be on their way. The heavens were a golden sermon that surrounded them thoughtfully. It was dawn returning to where it would always be welcomed - Delumine.
As she passed inaudibly through the land, the mist eddied at her legs and capitulated at her flank only to be suddenly thrust ajar by the mighty ebony appendages of Mateo, a guest she knew nothing about. He was not quite the burning shade of smoldering embers, but the simple darkness of velvet, silk, and other beautiful things. He was the same dark that blanketed these lands only a mere hour prior, the kind of dark that supersedes a brilliant sunrise, capable of beauty and change in one breath, like a small flower trembling open in spring; darkness that occurs in a solar eclipse, blocking out most of the light, the noise, the feeling of being, leaving you in the silence of serenity, if only for a few seconds.
His limbs, nimble and capable, awarded him a secure landing just in front of Maerys, who attended with lifted brows and lips that had quickly formed the beginnings of a smile. His words were vigorous and unafraid, so brazenly assumingrecognizing - he had caught her off guard but in only the best of ways. He queried if she would mind his company, to which she returned with a subtle tip of her head. "Nay, I doth not mind," she answered readily, both curious and charmed by the dark bird, only pausing a moment before continuing - "aye, 'tis Maerys." Her thoughts bubbled with questions - who are you? How do you know me? - but before she could propose such inquiries, he answered them. This left her to wonder momentarily if he could read her thoughts (such would not be unusual in Delumine where the curiosity in its inhabitants could correctly result in potent magic such as that).
She'd not met many soldiers during her time here, but those she had met were memorable, lads and ladies of frightening bulk, tact, and determination. She was not sinewy like those that regularly held such a rank as warrior, but she knew with the correct amount of tutelage and gusto, she could be more fearful than all of them. She had seen countless times how zeal could overcome physical power and knew such would be her saving grace at the appropriate time. Still - for what reason the stallion knew her, she did not know, but it was both pleasant and surprising to be known by another she had never introduced herself to. To be memorized and later recognized when her comrades were, in her opinion, far more remarkable, was a compliment that weighed far heavier than Mateo may have realized.
"Mateo." She breathed the name unobtrusively as if each letter were a precious jewel that she could not afford to shatter and from then on, she was sure the name would be forever committed to memory. "Mateo," she repeated more firmly now as she moved into an apology: "Pardon me for not owning awareness of thy alias prior." She offered a meek smile now, silently wishing she'd asked more about different Deluminians in the past for here was Mateo, a brilliant scholar whom she would never have known about if he had not introduced himself.
"Aye, 'tis. Truly a most wondrous blessing." Her response was with no lie. She had discovered an ever-faithful companion here, Vradara, who currently glid well above their backs should they look towards the heavens. Her beautifully crafted ax came shortly after, an excellent aid in the battlefield and a gift she is most precious of - it rests on the dew-covered blades of grass not too far away. Maerys has found those composed of kindness, benevolence, and love here, something that is a treasure troublesome to discover. She had been allowed to practice combat and had felt that her opportunities here were grand. "I'm fain to meet thee, I wast wondering at which hour I'd be granted the chance to acquaint myself with another Deluminian." The Dawn Court was grand - in these times it was without tyranny, without betrayal, without heartache or contempt. It was the largest of the courts with forty members. Oriens was not a vengeful or spiteful god, neither were his subjects. Should there be only one thing the silver-haired girl could ask for, it would surely be activity. Where were the forty members that composed this beautiful, intricately created court? Where were their sovereign and champions? Why is it she could walk hours before running into another? In the girl's eyes, it was Delumine's sole problem, but she would never utter a single syllable on it. Her gratefulness fully outweighed her sole criticism.
“Mateo,” she says, not once but twice, like a bird testing its wings. And although it’s the same five letters it sounds to him like two different names. He does not know which one is him, or which one he wants to be– both sound right on her tongue.
“There’s nothing to pardon,” he says, polite but bemused. Her tongue reminds him of some of the ancient texts he dug up in the library. Easily translatable to the common tongue but, to be honest, it takes him a second or two to process her sentences. “I’m the rude one, snooping around and learning about strangers without introducing myself.” He shrugs his wings, not at all apologetic. Mateo liked to know who was who in his court, especially in the Regent’s absence, and he didn’t see anything wrong with that. It wasn’t like he was some scoundrel selling information on the black market. The citizens of Delumine were like the threads in a great tapestry. Mateo was not interested in the big picture so much as the details– the color, thickness, and composition of each thread, and the details of how each was woven with the others. He wanted to know their faces, names, stories, and to paint them in song the way an artist would with paintbrush and palette.
He gets a little sidetracked, thinking of colors and songs, and by extension scents and textures and feelings, all his senses blurring together like the haze that cradles them, the blur only broken by the distinct image of Maerys’ pale body.
To his wonder, she speaks of a blessing. A blessing!
Most citizens of Dawn Court didn’t speak like that. Many didn’t believe in luck, let alone blessings– they were too focused on logic, science, philosophy. Narrow-minded fools! It never failed to rankle him how knowledge and faith were considered separate and even opposing things. “A blessing indeed,” he says softly, letting the word blessing fill his heart with gratitude for his kingdom, this moment, and the consistency of the dawn. “Praise Oriens,” he says so softly it is not clear if he intends for the words to be heard or not.
(“The sun will always rise again,” his mother would tell him after sunset when he grew wild with fear. “How do you know?” He asked. “I believe,” she said, and something in the way she spoke– the calm knowing in her voice or the plain peaceful look on her face– something cause him to believe, too. And he never stopped.)
“You don’t speak like anyone I’ve heard before.” He frowns because he does not like not knowing things, but there is a joyful spark of curiosity on his features to overcome it– everything he does not know presents an opportunity to learn, and he did so love learning. “Where are you from?” He instinctively leans toward her in interest. The fog wraps around both of them, as though it senses the ripening day and searches for something, anything to anchor to. Step by step they part the misty curtain as they walk, although Mateo, lost to his intrigue, is completely heedless to where they are going.
she was powerful not because she wasn't scared,
but because she went on strongly despite her fear.
I'm the rude one, he professed so undoubtedly, but Maerys discerned nothing improper about the dark stallion. It was clear the man had an investment in others - the way they felt, the power they had, and even the devastation they could cause. In certain ways, it could be considered insanity. He knew the game as well as he did all the players, but how many hours did he spend inspecting and retaining? How much of his time was committed to simply knowing? Maerys itched to commend him on his devotedness to knowledge but held her tongue, unsure of how he would respond to her unadulterated observation. She shared a similar itch to him. Within her heart was the drive to know more, see more, experience more. How many hours had she read over books in the library? Books were expressions of a brain still connected to deep emotions, and on those pages, she would learn all she desired to. How could she not push to learn more, read more? How many strangers had she asked about the world - about monsters and politics and religion and magic? How many languages had she learned solely because they fascinated her? Mateo's passion to identify the inner workings of his world also resided in Maerys, but she utilized books, questioning those she bumped into, and the subdued quarters of the library where it appeared to her that Mateo watched everything unfold firsthand before scrutinizing it later. Conceivably he preferred the undoctored perspective of who others were and how things occurred paired with the previously documented history of what has happened, which was something Maerys could only assume (an assumption that, should it be true, she respected).
Or was she drawing too profoundly into it? Had he by opportunity faltered across the dun mare mid-training? Had he only noted her because she was the only one honing her skills on the day he happened to observe?
She could only wonder, such questions never to be spoken.
Yes - far from rude. "Thee hast flattered me, Mateo," she replied after a moment of thought. "I believe thou art far from impudent."
As the discussion proceeded, he declared the words praise Oriens heavy enough to be caught, but low enough that she queried if she was intended to hear. Faith - hers had waned to near obsoletion a long time ago, like a petal being pulled by the current into the ocean to become forgotten and abandoned, likely drowned. She remembered piercingly when she was young how others would utilize religion and worship to veil themselves as vessels of the gods like a trojan horse only to gain power, passion, or prestige. It was only when her heart unexpectedly fractured - when there was no one to come home to and she felt lost that she let faith back into her life. Praise Oriens. "Oriens is good," she volunteered, believing the words wholly as they part from her delicate lips in the same quiet tone Mateo had used.
The dark stag probed about her birthplace after he regarded her accent - one of her many tells. From the saccharine dunes of Ragnarysa to the palace walls of Arganoem, in a land very similar to Novus, Maerys had no accent, only the voice of education; the lilt of a noble. In those lands, her tongue was as prevalent as the stone used to pave dirt roads with, but here it marked her as an outsider. She resembled some of the Novus inhabitants - with equal burning eyes and svelte silver, but would never sound related. Mateo's declarations swung off of his tongue in a timbre of melodic affection, casual and inquisitive, something Maerys could imitate but never truly have. "I hail from a state very distant."
There was something so intimate about revealing anything of her past that it was complicated for her to do so. She was an innately secretive girl whose presence usually raised some questions - why was a two-year-old a warrior? What made her come to Novus, or more specifically Delumine? Where was her family? Who was she? Mateo may find Maerys as a sort of challenge. When it came down to the defined details of who she was, Maerys often failed to sate the curious beasts in those around her.
She recalled when Seraphina asked the girl about her position as a warrior. The Solterran mare had insisted she didn't realize that Delumine took warriors so juvenile and then proceeded to investigate if Maerys was an apprentice. In response, all Maerys had said was that she was not an apprentice before stating that she got the position through the old saying ask and thou shalt receive. The vague answer was not a rude one, though it left little room to ask for further questions. Maerys recognized that Mateo would presumably want to know about the girl more than Seraphina did, so she yielded to her desire to satisfy the stallion and softly stated, "'Tis a land known as Varak." The words were reluctant and cautious to tumble out of her mouth as her eyes danced to meet the emerald of Mateo's. "Mine own family," she paused momentarily, searching for the correct words before continuing. "did exist there many years." Centuries, generations, a wide network of Valdoraths and then Maerys, the last of them.
She wasn't certain if anyone had ever asked him questions in the way she desired to, but part of her suspected not. Who would ask questions to a stallion who so completely desired answers? Her curiosity and desire to dance away from the subject of the past sparked a myriad of wonder in her mind. "What about thy future?" She questioned vaguely at first, before refining the sentence in a momentary lull. "History cannot be reworked, but the tomorrow..." she smiled excitedly at the stallion. "Well, yond is all up to thee." The sentiment is bright, a rosy visual of how life works. "What doth thee want to be, Mateo? Anything at all - meager to mighty."
Feasibly it was incorrect to ask a ripened stallion what he wanted to be for there was a vast chance he already was what he wanted to be, but the inquisition was the opposite of his and she wondered anyways what his answer would be.
"Oriens is good" rings calm and sure across the morning. It puts him at ease, if he was ever not at ease, to think of his god listening, watching, loving.
The day, growing brighter, seems so wide open and limitless.
Varak. He wonders what it looks like. Is it a land of towering mountains and shorelines jagged as teeth? Is it green or grey, blue or gold or all of the above? How did Maerys get here and why, and why Delumine, and-- did she ever miss it, home, or was she one of those people who carried home in their heart? Delumine is all he's ever known of home, all he ever wants to know, and he isn't sure if he envies or pities her.
Neither, probably. Emotion was so much more complicated than that, wasn't it?
He has many more questions. Surely she can sense them-- maybe she can even see them, growing eagerly behind his silver-green eyes.
But before he can unload his questions, with a cleverness he found engaging, she quickly shifted topics from past to future, herself to him-- it was a little like swordplay, which he had never possessed a lick of skill or interest in, but far more fun for Mateo. He was good with his words, in a way that verged on silver-tongued, and so brightens as though she's performed a magic trick or challenged him to a dare.
Mateo does not take any time to reflect on the question. The answer is there, the answer is always there-- "I want to be a bard," like my father is something he's too old to be saying out loud, but out of habit he leaves a quiet space where those words once went. "And with just twelve notes unfurled," he sings this part, in a voice deeper, stronger, truer than his speaking voice. It is rich and full and completely lacking in hesitation. "lay bare all the truths of the world!" He shuffles his feet in a small dance, dramatically unfurling his wings at the end and spreading the tips of his feathers like fingers. Magic beyond his control picks up the jig and dances to it in its own strange way, filling the air with the scent of fresh-cracked hazelnuts.
He maintains the pose for one long, silent, dramatic moment and then he relaxes once more into the small, simple, exceedingly curious black-winged stallion, dime a dozen. When he laughs he sounds like a boy. When he speaks, further still. "But the gods have fated me to live my life as a scribe, for all the blood leaves my head and the air my chest when I stand in front of a crowd." Even singing in front of Maerys was not terribly comfortable... but he had sensed, somehow, the way she reached deep into herself to answer him true, and some pure part of himself responded in kind.
- - -
@Maerys so sorry for the wait! she is so wonderful <3
she was powerful not because she wasn't scared,
but because she went on strongly despite her fear.
I want to be a bard.
His odes leveled over the scenery in imperial waves. Swells of power ricochetted up his gullet and departed from his velvet lips in a way that Maerys wasn't cognizant it could. His voice was silken stanza and the haunting feeling of wanting something unattainable as he pulled her from thoughts of the past.
She'd never heard a stallion's voice described as beautiful, always paramount, mighty, captivating, but never simply beautiful. It was beautiful - the insurance of tomorrow and she wished he would've continued.
He swung and melted as if it were the only way his body truly knew how to discourse, though Maerys knew such was not true by the words he vocalized and the inquiries he charged. She didn't grasp much about the man before her, but as he held his final pose and watched her, his audience, with a gleeful expression she felt moved by him.
What made him afraid? Afraid of potential success and failures? For neither existed in any place but the imagination. Fear was a kind of derangement, but one that was serviceable if you knew how it operated. Fear would guide you to the things you gripped and grasped as inestimable. Mearys aspired to tell him to confront panic with resolution, understand it, and then let it go, but the process was not always that mere - no, it never was. She sought to let her fears wake her and let them reveal to her the way to her truest self, to the brave soul whose life shimmers like stardust in the moonlight. "'Tis not easy to fully beest thy own master, amply healed-" she mused "-when thy terminal terror becomes the very lodging thee gather thy strength and courage."
As her mauve eyes danced sideways, she watched the sun bloom on the horizon, golden petals stretching ever outwards into the rich blue. "I may not beest much of a crowd and yond nay was a full act, but I did fancy it." The words may not mean much to the raven before her, but she meant it earnestly. "Others wouldst too."
Mateo doesn’t have the slightest clue how fear operates. He only knows how selfish it can be. How all-consuming it becomes. How stupidly irrational it is. He loved singing and he loved pleasing an audience... did love plus love equal fear in all universes, or just this stupid one??
The pegasus sighs heavily, fiercely wrapped up in self pity. And then, like turning a switch, his emotions flip. Her words light him up like Christmas morning. His spirit soars sky high, and he’s well acquainted with exactly how high that is.
(He knows how it’s anything but blue, when you’re in the middle of it.)
And then the sun rises, and the new day begins, and my what a beautiful start this one is off to.
He stretches his wings, feels the universe rush in to all his empty spaces. “You sound like poetry, you know. Or scripture.” Like god was speaking straight through her. He does not give such compliments often, at least not so genuinely as this. When drunkenly flirting, they flowed from him as quickly and easily as the drinks being poured. But that wasn’t the real Mateo. That was not all all like he is now, all sober and honest and-- and cracked-shell vulnerable.
“Will you tell me a story while we walk? About anything. I’d like to listen to you talk.” The boy keeps a cool head, but the slightest flush colors his words. Magic blooms shyly in the air and splashes of orange, red, yellow, dart like koi fish in the fog around them.
- - -
@Maerys beep boop I'm thinking we can fade out here and maybe have another thread in the future? I'm so sorry this took so long, I ADORE Maerys <3<3
![[Image: maerys-pixel.png]](https://i.ibb.co/kM48w8r/maerys-pixel.png){kind=tracking}
