Eik came here to say goodbye. He is not a man of funeral pyres, especially crowded ones. No, as soon as he sees the bones, he leaves to pay his respects alone and in the places of his old gods. His gods, the ones that are no longer here. He started in the desert, naturally. Then to the great mountain, the crown of Novus. From there, through the forests to the ocean. Along the way he thinks of the fallen commander, he pushes his memories deep into sand, stone, mud, and now- the sea.

Maxence is not all he thinks about. The two men only knew each other so well, after all. On Eik's pilgrimage, he thinks of the creatures he's met in his short stay in Novus. The desert rose, the woman of steel, the boy who reminds him of the color turquoise. These are the first to come to mind, but the rest soon follow, as imagery and snippets of conversation and details. Like he is spying on his own life in bits and pieces. Sunrise, snake, eagle, twilight. Black velvet and a basket and the drip drop of molten gold. He tries to imagine where he fits in with all these deconstructed characters and finds he cannot. There is no real place, no stage large enough for his vast... vastness. Loneliness. Oddity.. We ramble and rant and secretly hope to find something left among the ashes.

And when we don't, well... we look up and see her. The desert mirage. Eik hasn't attracted her attention yet and takes this moment to look her over, to match the sight before him to his memory of that day among the dunes. He wants to leave before he is seen (he knows how sweet it can be, alone with your thoughts) but she turns her head and there is no graceful escape for him.

He sighs and comes closer. "I did not think I would see you again," he says. It made me a little sad almost rises to his lips but he swallows it down. Too childish. Feelings are so much more complicated than happy and sad, more nuanced than he has words for. I wanted to swallow the clouds is more accurate, but too... dramatic.

(We'll save that one for a lover we will, if we ever love anyone more than solitude and sifting through ashes and the stillness of a winter morning on the tundra and)

His thoughts are tangled and complicated, but it is this simple: she went her way and he went his, and now their ways meet again.

He steps forward to stand beside her on the bluff. "Is this where you've been? The sea?" She seems so at place in the desert that he has a hard time seeing her truly at peace here, amidst all this blue and green. This is his type of place, vast and lonesome.

---

@Rhoswen I couldn't resist, hope you don't mind! 

In the brilliant sunset her gaze has the sharpness of a cleaver, with the slightest hint of the fires it was forged in. It makes him wonder what worlds lie in her past and future, and how his own story overlaps. The ocean breeze seems to love the way she breathes his name, for it carries the sound away from him. It does not matter. Isn't that what he said the last time they met? The first time? He is not sure how much he trusts his memories, for they seem slightly different each time he looks back, certain details standing out more and more while others slowly fade. Words and phrases change, sometimes erase themselves entirely. And the more he looks back the less he can commit the present to memory. The bittersweet conundrum of being.

Her voice seems different than what he remembers. He thinks, though, that this is not due to his pockmarked memory but because they are both different than the last time they met. But he will ponder these differences far later, in hindsight.

"I would not lie to you, Rhoswen," he protests, half teasing, but the truth of her words hit him hard. For so long he has wandered the corridors of his thoughts, assuming he knew most every twist, assuming he knew himself. But as he thinks on her words he realizes that perhaps what he had mistaken for hope was in fact a deep knowing, a knowledge so subliminal he was afraid to trust in it. Perhaps. It makes him feel like two sides of a coin, going in two directions as it is flipped in the air. Not possible in this reality, and isn't that why he always feels just a little insane?

Still, you can't tell someone it isn't possible to feel what they're feeling. What it comes down to is this: Can you both hope for something and know that it will come to pass?

Or is knowledge just hope (or dread) come to fruition?

"but maybe you're right." Even as he says this he wonders if you can really know anything, or is it all just belief, disguised as fact. Again, two sides of the same coin, going in two directions. Its been less than a minute with her and he's already questioning his beliefs, splitting himself in two. He's delighted and tormented all in one, poor soul.

(Faraway, there is a buzzing sound, coming suddenly into focus as a symphony of instruments and voices he's never heard before-- music? Nothing's ever for certain, until the levy breaks down-- but the curtain drops again)

Do you condemn me for leaving?

A bark of laughter, rare for the somber grey, bursts from his chest. And a vague feeling of... not happiness but something similar- anticipation? Anticipation follows his laughter, filling in some of the holes in his rusted chest. She makes conversation feel like dancing (at least, the way he imagines dancing should feel, if you can do it right). "Of course not," he says, incredulous that she would ask such a thing. He does not need nor particularly want to touch her, but his warm voice envelops her like a hug.

"Have you been well?" Eik knows she is far stronger and sharper than she seems at first glance, but he is concerned for her nonetheless.

---

@Rhoswen :')

She comes in and out of focus as his thoughts sharpen and then fade in time with the waves of the sea. For he is always coming and going, both here and elsewhere, that endless dark place where thoughts live before words shape them, tease them into something that isn't quite right but maybe, someday, if you try hard enough you'll find the perfect words. Isn't that what keeps us all moving-? Isn't that divinity?

(When will you realize you are neither insane nor alone, and everyone has their own gold-flecked hamster wheels to walk-- yours is just a little rusty---

ah, but marvel at the bits of gold you find, and hold your breath as though they won't come round again)

Or are we just bashing our heads for the sake of semantics?

(Doesn't it feel sometimes as though you belong in the world the way it was a thousand years ago, and you got spit out here by some drunken god telling drunken jokes and eating with his mouth open?)

'Does it matter?'

Now that's the question at the heart of it all, the whole shebang. He wants to say no, but gets distracted. Every time his attention narrows in on her again, he is half-surprised she is still there, gleaming, red, gold, fire- marvelous and untouchable. She tightens and relaxes again, he could only ponder the depth of feeling that flows through her, how one moment it snaps like a whip made of flame, and the next relaxes to embers.

He wants to say no, 

that you are who you are and the path before does not concern itself with the path behind. That is what he feels- that time touches you but doesn't move you, and the past doesn't change the future. And how you've been doesn't change how you are or will be, not really. But he doubts himself, sometimes. Often. Luckily she surges forward before he can untangle an answer. It is for the best that we don't divulge our philosophies out loud, crude and unrefined as they are. We keep them in that other place for now, the place without words.

"Aye." The backcountry mannerism slips out, followed by a tired sigh. There are a lot of things he could say that he does not- there was nothing to be done/he was plucked from the sky by a giant bird/I saw his bones/how the babies screamed when they were pummeled to death. It was such a rotten and ugly thing. Of course, in his escape he has run right back to it. Oh rusty hamster wheel... bless the day we simply stop running.

He wonders if and how her return is linked to Maxence's departure. Sometimes coincidence is just the end of a very long chain reaction that started before we can remember. "Did you know him well?" He asks, sensing that nothing could be pried from her, and god help the man who tried, but perhaps she could be persuaded to give bits and pieces away, if asked in the right way.

---

@Rhoswen nonsense! <3

Eik leafs through his memories of Maxence carefully, and together they seem like a dream come and gone- dark water, dancing a silver dance with the moon. What was it Vadim had said? Ah yes, His choices will echo through history for generations.   There are many ways to measure a man while he's alive, but once he's gone all you're left with is memories.

So what is the point of it all anyway, if in the end we're just memories-- and even those fade. Nothing truly lasts; stories fade, culture evolves, the earth keeps turning, oblivious to the struggle and strife of those who call it home.

And yet certain things- like a beautiful woman- they matter. He tries his hardest to not be swayed by it, but time and time again he is drawn in, moth to flame. And so he can't help but hang off every word Rhoswen says. If he could he would drown himself in them, it would be a lovely way to die. She calls Maxence a fool and he unconsciously flicks an ear at her response, curious but not wanting to pry. Eik thinks they're all fools, himself included. No better than chickens, mindlessly strutting about. When she turns her attention to him he burns

my god, you're a forest fire aren't you? Why aren't I afraid?

and it takes him a moment to reply. His eyes rest on the sea as he thinks, feeling once again how the waves somehow straighten him out. He chooses his words carefully- he always does, but especially so now.  "The sun." He says finally, after some deliberation. Not Solis but the sun, the heat of the desert. "I never wanted to be cold again." Of course, now he craves snow and the old-lichen smell of the tundra and the way the cold presses to your skin like a knife. The grass is always greener, etc.

"And I was told that is where warriors go." He gives his feelings away grudgingly (because what is the point of feeling at all) so there is an odd tone in his voice, something like regret. There is perhaps a third reason, something hard to describe and so he does not try to, at least not out loud. He is not gifted with words like others he knows. We can only sum it up as magnetism, a sense of rightness if not belonging.

"To be honest, I don't understand it all. How everyone here is divided." He looks to her in earnest, hoping for an explanation that makes sense (and yet not expecting one). There is a pause, and after- "Do you worship Solis?" His gaze has mostly rested on the sea, and that faraway place, but he peers at her now in curiosity--

It pleases and intrigues him how many layers there are to every living being.

---

@Rhoswen :')