i am so much more than royal

There were only a few things better than the sound of waves kissing a sandy shore, the gulls crying out from the cloud-dotted sky. Castalla stood atop a towering cliff, head raised to the sky as the wind danced playfully through her hair. She looked so calm, so at peace as the summer sun cast orange rays across her pale coat. So at odds to the scars that littered her form and the dagger clasped to her left foreleg. A still-healing bite mark marred the cream expanse of her neck, the only evidence of her nightly activities- that and a barely perceptible stiffness in her right hind leg. Without swift healing and immortality, wounds hit a little different in Novus. But of course to the centuries-old assassin, it was nothing new.

The Wolf released a long sigh, eyes still closed as she allowed her other senses to roam. The air was filled with salt and seaweed, her lips parted as she drew the scents over her tongue. Waves crashed upon waves, the orchestra of Salia as the distant noise permeated the quiet. With each dull roar Castalla felt her worries thrown to the ocean, like pebbles in a lake. No matter where you went, in whatever world or realm, the ocean always sounded the same. Castalla could almost forget that it was upon Denocte’s cliffs that she stood, a pale beacon against the blue expanse above her. Instead she could imagine the mountainous spires of Nightfall Keep towering behind her, could almost taste scents of jasmine and shadow blossom rife upon the sea-bitten air. And for a moment it tasted like home. If only for a moment.

"Now why would the blessed Oracle ever wish to leave the safety found within the walls of Sohorn?"

A single eye, glacial and unamused, flickered towards one of the 12 archons.  For once in their miserable lives, the protesting individual does not back down at the challenge their Blessed Oracle gives him.

A parchment and utensil rest before him and, more often than not, they remain untouched before the Oracle.  Today, however, is different.

'You dare question what has been seen?'  Is what he writes, and his penmanship is rare enough that all archons around are eager to glimpse the words he chooses to grace the parchment with.  He cares for none of their reactions, only for the one who has captured his attention.

The man is beginning to waver, and it is in those few precious seconds before the archon does that Drune knows he has won.

None will ever know that the vision he spoke of was false; they will never know for telling lies is so much easier without words revealing them. Drune feels no shame or guilt, only a simmering sense of satisfaction.

May the beloved Gods of Sohorn come to regret the day that they brushed golden hands across his brow and revealed to him all they saw.


~


Crashing waves, an endless sea, flashes of scarred white and piercing blue.  No matter the flashing glimpses, the quick snapshots, he has always found within each something of interest.  Deny them, despise them, he might but they have always held his attention.  He does not want to be interested in what he sees, of course, but that is so very hard to do when they are a common occurrence.  They distract his mind and tug at his thoughts with an annoying insistence that only an unruly child could possess.

Regardless of his feels and thoughts towards his gift, Drune still pays attention.  It doesn't matter if he doesn't want to.

That is why - by the grace of the beloved Gods or something else - he knew what to look for.  Rarely did he ever try to piece together what was shown to him but free at last of the watchful, criticizing eyes of all archons, Drune must.  There is no familiarity here.

(In that freedom laid something unknown and new, though, for never before has the Oracle experienced a life free of confinement.  Kept under lock and key after being taken by clawing, desperate hands, never before has he had anything close to this.)

This escape was a luxury but it also required him to depend on the horrid gift he had been given.  For what else was there to depend on for assistance in this journey?

Somewhere, in some far off place, the Gods were surely laughing — Drune could imagine that.

Searching for that brief glimpse he and seen, the precarious perch, the metal of his fabricated limb find better purchase now that he was away from the sand that had grabbed at the limb with greedy hands.  That limb alone made his movements more noticeable; Drune was not capable of walking quietly despite wishing otherwise.  He could flick his tail in agitation and sneer down at the contraption all he liked, it changed nothing.

Metal stamping down on dirt and stray pebbles, he did not stop until that dangerous, thrilling perch finally came into view, and with it the glimpse of cream that was marred. Like a marble statue of old, the other stood there.  

Forever Drune would deny his gift - would say others were wrong and tell them he was nothing - but as he came upon the other, the tension in his neck pushing against the ribbon tightly wrapped around it, Drune glanced around with his only eye for that piercing blue.  Where was it?

Experience told him he only had to wait, and with a flare of his nostrils (a challenge, a greeting, one will never know) Drune came to a stop meters behind the creamy white he had gleaned in his mind and did just that.




@Castalla