He found his way here, because of her.  Because of his best friend, and the way she’d spoken of home.  If Pan had his own way, he would have convinced her to stay with him by the sea.  Where they could be young again, where they could reminisce on times past.  But Florentine was a social flower, one which needed to bloom somewhere.  She couldn’t be happy with just him… she had to have others in her life.  Pan did too, he supposed.  So as he turned away from the sea, he sighed whimsically just once, her words floating in his mind.  I miss Neverland.  He did too, so much he felt at times his heart would burst.  He missed the hushed whisper of water against white sand, the distant mermaid songs… the way things were.  But nothing was the same anymore, and nothing would be the same.  

Sighing, he took in this new place – another temple.  It was different from the dawn temple, shrouded with murky shadows and an ethereal sort of fog.  Pushing away his gloomy thoughts from before, Pan began to poke around the edges of the rocky spires, drawing the smell of damp clay into his lungs.  It was wholly different from the place he’d chosen to make his home, and yet there was something oddly comforting about it.  A strange choice, he thought to himself, for the girl of sunshine and flowers.  But he could see the charm of this place too.

If Pan had come on a brighter day, he might have been taken with the green fields and the sea cliffs, but his journey had taken longer than expected, and night was beginning to fall in this place.  Looking around, he whispered to the impending night.  ”Flora?  Are you here?”  Remembering the goddess of this place, he hurried to add, ”Vespera… it’s me, Pan.  I don’t mean any harm.  I’m just visiting… from the Dawn Court.  Kasil sends his regards.”  Hopefully it was okay to address Florentine’s goddess.  After all, Pan knew now that there were four gods at Novus.  And he knew better than to be disrespectful to any of them, even if he was supposed to follow Oriens above all others.

His mind began to wander as he waited, dwelling on the suggestion that he should consider being a warrior.  It wasn’t his path… he knew that.  But maybe Flora could teach him more about healing.  After all, he liked the idea of helping people.  Maybe in time, he could learn to be good at it.

Pan

Pan was late. Where once Florentine might have been bossy, reprimanding the colt for his untimely arrival, well, now she took the delay as an opportunity to sleep.
 
The role of Emissary, with all of its demands, was exhausting even on the girl for whom adventures were made. So it is that Pan would find her, nestled into a dark corner of the damp swamp, one wing swept over her body and face like a blanket.
 
The sounds of night here were as loud as the day, for night flies came when the day flies went. They glowed and danced like fairies lit with starlight. About and about they swirled and twirled, tripping over the murky waters.  The shallow pools bubbled and lapped with the stirrings of night creatures rousing in their depths.
 
For a long while Flora listened to the wild orchestra, her mind upon a boy with a cut shoulder and bruised fruit. She wondered where Auru was now… was he still tending his wound from their encounter? It seemed the twilight girl had only bad luck with boys since she arrived here.
 
The sound of a familiar voice, high with youth yet soft with secrecy, crept its way into her fitful dreams. From the pool of sleep-imbibed thoughts the girl began to rise, a wing falling away as one bleary eye settled upon the distant form of her friend Pan.
 
Rising from her place of rest, leaves and mud clinging unkemptly to her skin, Flora takes a step towards him. The yawn that parts her lips is muffled, yet not contained, and after she smiles sleepily at her friend. “Here Pan. Let’s go.”
 
Deep into the swampland she leads him. Over bramble and brush, hanging vines and lurking pools they step. Her way is slow and wary; for it is easy to believe that dangerous things lie in the dark of this swamp. But only one girl would know for sure…
 
“Yana.” Florentine calls, her voice too melodic for the chirping and buzz of insects. They quieten, as if to here the girl’s call once more. “Yana, I have brought a friend, I have a favour to ask of you…”
 
She licks her lips, amethyst eyes bright even in the dark silver of this murky woodland. “Will you join us?”

@Pan @Yana

this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

Pan was immediately impressed by Flora’s Yana.  In his mind, he’d painted a picture of a hedgewitch, buried deep away from society, brewing some concoction and stirring up some magical spell.  Perhaps she could cast a sleeping draught on an entire village, freezing them in time until the spell could be broken.  Or maybe she could turn frogs into her minions, or cast eternal winter on her enemies.  The ideas that poured through Pan’s mind were enough to draw a boyish grin to his lips… and as Yana greeted them, his imagination raced.  Far from waning, he was drawn to even more intrigue by the dark creature of the swamp.

I’m Pan!  He offered his name easily and without hesitation, the words bouncing joyfully from the eager colt’s lips, in a way that seemed uncharacteristic of the dark and ominous swamp.  Flora’s bestest best friend… I’ve known her since she was just a baby… and I knew her mom before that.  It was a strange thought, looking at them, for it was clear now that Flora was older than the scaled boy Pan (or at least their looks alone would suggest it)… but Pan was a timeless thing, cursed forever by the mantle of youth.  

I came from the Dawn Court.  We’re your neighbors, to the North I think.  And Flora told me that you were the greatest healer there is…  Nevermind that he may have embellished that thought, but it sounded good, and Pan truly believed it.  Our Sovereign Kasil wants me to find a path in the herd, and I think I might want to be a healer too… we were wondering if maybe you could teach me some of what you know – about the plants, and helping people… I promise I’m a good student.

And he was, for Pan was an inquisitive creature, with an insatiable thirst for knowledge.  If he were honest with himself, he was probably best suited to be a sage… but it was difficult for Pan to imagine being a sage in a sea of other sages.  Delumine was known for intellect, and their land had far more sages than they needed.  Since war was not his flavor, that left healing… and it sounded like a good idea from where Pan was standing.  His eyes were bright and hopeful as they locked onto the dark mare’s pleading almost for her to take up his cause.  But still too, there is a niggling in his mind… for he wondered about what favor she might be asking of Florentine.  

Pan

Pan was so curious about the starry mare.  She seemed a conundrum to him – like some cross between a witchy fairy-godmother, and… well… a witch.  While at first, she’d appeared a bit thorny, it was clear that his charm was doing its tricks on her, and he was pleased to see her coming around – for there was little Pan wanted more at this time than to learn to be a healer.  After all, King Kasil had given him a job, to find his place in the world.  Pan needed to have a job, and he wanted to be a healer so that he could help others.  While it was true that the Dawn Court could probably use more warriors than anything else, Pan knew he didn’t have it in him to hurt another.

Flora’s mom is Karou – one of my oldest friends.  We met in Eirhelm… that was one of my first homes.  Then, we went to a new place after we fell through the sky, called the Rift  And that’s where Karou met Gabriel, Flora’s dad… and, well you know – they made a baby!  Pan wasn’t sure exactly how baby-making worked, but he remembered the way it felt to press his muzzle against the antelope mare’s belly and feel the movement.  And, he’d met Flora even before she was born, when she had time traveled to find him.  It was all very far fetched and confusing to an outsider.  But he and the flower mare knew the truth about all of it, and he’d promised long ago not to tell Flora’s secret about the rift tide and the dagger.  Adding the time traveler to the immortal boy, you had quite the conundrum of time.  

We have lots of plants where I live!  He changed topics as if it wasn’t weird at all, easily perking up at the thought of being helpful.  And I brought a book that I found in the library…  Rummaging through his satchel, he drew out a delicate bird skull, a shimmering fish scale, and a jagged-edged mushroom before finding it.  Here!  The book was old, with yellowing pages and scarred lines on the cover, but within its pages was a handwritten journal that talked of the plants around his home.  I haven’t read the whole thing, but I found some of these already… see?  He flipped the book open toward a technically drawn picture of Culver’s Root, drawing a wilting flower to match it from his bag.  Ever grateful for learning to read, he looked up from the pages with puppy-dog eyes at Yana, and back at his bestest-friend Flora, wondering what came next.

Pan