The word’s of the old stallion and his story of these new lands leaves a bitter taste on the boy’s tongue. It reminds him of the gods who had let his homeland dissolve in fumes. Allowed his friends to cease all existence. He shivered as he recalled the white plume of energy consuming those from within who stood their ground against the villain. Flesh torn away from their forms in ethereal elegance. Instead of tears he merely bore his eyes into the crisp, blue skies.
“Novus.” The sound that fell from his mouth was foreign. It hit the air with a dull pang, providing him no amount of hope or reprieve. He found it cruel and ironic that the god of Day existed on this plane. And whether it had been nostalgia, and the underlying desperation for something familiar within – he pursued the Day Court like a starved beast. A hound in search of food, hollowed out.
Nimble limbs pressed off the ground. Steady, faithful wings pulsed and lifted him further into the air. The world around him fell away. While the winds lilted here and there, cool hands that grazed across his skin. Severing thoughts of a land that no longer existed, or the people lost and forsaken. Instead of being blown to and fro, a leaf trapped on the tides of the wind, he was rewarded by the simple task he set ahead of himself. A rare, blooming warmth that nestled gently beside him. For it was adventure that sparked its bloom, and a pale manifestation of purpose that hurried his flight towards the heart of Solterra.
What would he find there? People, the ocean… Its saline scent teased him to pick up his pace. It breathed life inside of tired flesh and sinew, in the travelled muscles that kept him together – chasing memories of childhood. He trembled as they neared the edges of the fortress. Beyond the wind swept dunes, and their inhospitable reaches. Respirations became heavy, sucking in air, as he pressed further until he couldn’t any longer. Defeated, but nowhere conquered by his fatigue – the youth stumbled upon the arid ground with shaky limbs. Sweat clung to his skin, from the steady rays of the sun. And before him in the near distance, he could see the castle in its grand form.
Verdant eyes did not reciprocate the curiosity that befell Saiorse then. They hung on a balance, an impartial presence that could not express this impressive find. For he was still the stranger, and perhaps these people would accuse him of trespassing. It made him hesitate, as he neared the building. Stopping himself from continuing any further. He bit his lip as if it to reprimand himself - people didn’t change. People were all the same, all together suspicious and perhaps just as guarded as he. Strangers might as well as be pretenders, spies, and intruders.
What was he then?
The youth breathed in deeply. Shuffling himself so that he could gaze at the ocean while he waited. Either for someone to notice of his presence, or to observe for an opening – an opportunity to pass through and… Hopefully grapple with some sort of bearing as to where exactly he had landed himself.
It was birdsong that woke her from a heavy, dreamless slumber; their chorus saccharine and aerial, tending to her ears like medication - needed, cardinal. On this day she had not risen with the sun, ignoring Solis' call and following that of the colourful escape one could find only within sleep. Fatigue, too, had been worn heavily around her neck, for the nights preceding her return had been sleepless, the darkness raided by foreboding. This was her first morning waking once more in the small bedchamber she chosen all those months ago, the crisp sunlight streaming warmly through dusty windows; home. She was yet to seek out the new sovereign, yet to beg pardon for her absence; the thought left an unpleasant, metallic taste on her tongue, not dissimilar to spilt blood. The girl sighed, breathing in the scent of the great stone walls, listening to the indistinct bustle of her comrades.
Untold red curls bounced about Rhoswen's finely-spun shoulders as she slipped out into the hallway, glancing over her shoulder fervently - a walk, surely, would calm the violent anarchy in her blood - and so briskly she swept onward and out into the midday sun from a side entrance. It felt good to be outside, away from the ominous walls looming in on her, away from him. Rhos knew once she had spoken to Seraphina this sense of uncertainty would fade; this dread could not last forever. The sand danced beneath her dainty hooves, welcoming her with its golden embrace. It was good to be back.
As she looked up and out toward the dune-filled horizon a figure, tall and winged, came to her attention. Rhos paused, ashen eyes studying the boy from afar, taking a moment to consider him, for his was not a face she could recall. Many weeks she had been absent, it would not be strange to return to new members of the court, but something about this stranger's expression, his posture, struck her as odd. Was he lost? Squaring her sharp shoulders, the avian girl crossed the space between them easily, approaching quietly, confidently. The muted colour of his coat reminded her of a winter sky, his young boyish features striking against the backdrop of the desert, but his scent was entirely foreign; Solterra had not touched him before. He was no constituent of the court, no follower of Day.
"Lost?" Her voice is low, formless, but fierce - the crackle of a newly lit fire. Rhos waits, gazing up at him from beneath clustered spiderleg lashes the colour of ink, a smile threatening to strike like a match across her sanguine lips.
At times the boy had wished his spirit could depart along the airs that pulsed with an unpredictable rhythm. As if the gusts and vigor spurned by the forces far beyond the reach of his wings, could set his soul on fire. But as he continued to linger his gaze on the ocean from a far, he began to feel ever so distant from life itself. So much that the brine on the wind vanished from his senses. The coalescing voices around him hummed in no particular, subdued gesture. So that he could ignore their callings, their busy bodies – Saoirse had become the statue, locked on the perpetual swing of memories wrestling to breach past the stone. He could only feign indifference for so long. He feared it would break, or crack – and he would be powerless in that vulnerability. What was left? He wondered.
Saoirse’s forgetfulness of the inhabitants, allows the stranger in the distance to appraise him unnoticed. The youth’s eyelids fall just half way, overestimating the expenses made on his body. Pulling his wings closer to conserve warmth.
Her voice is as unassuming as the populace that murmurs in various tones beyond them. The boy lifts his gaze to greet her dark eyes, suddenly aware of the proximity and force that winds underneath the weight of her voice. He licks his dry lips and waves his tail. Undulating underneath the concentration of thought that springs into action.
“For a while now.” His honesty seems to drain the air of energy. What remains entangled in his eyes is a careful spark, one that regards the stranger with an air of practiced caution and boyish curiosity. “I’ve heard the best warriors train here… is that true?”
He seems to make subtle changes to his posture. As if to challenge the elegant woman in an act of defiance, having no logical cause or reason to. His head tilts higher, his wings lifted carefully off his sides as if to add more bulk to his slim features. He thought he knew the secret, knew the truth about the world then – or at least some sliver of it. And that he’d keep it from her, thinking; the best is never good enough. And those who fight and live, eventually die. Perhaps it was in the way people died, that mattered. Even then, it could be for entirely inane reasons. Choices that, in a few hundred years would cease to ever exist.
Something old and childish guided him closer, and closer to the throngs of battle regardless.
It was hard to say if the mare was a warrior herself; underneath the fine curves of her bodice, the soft highlights of sanguine. She did not exude a map of scars, or harbor ghastly wounds that a warrior might accumulate in their lifetime.
Rhoswen tilted her head ever so slightly, an expression of calculated mirth glinting in the prismatic gloom of her wintry eye. She had not expected him to be so candid about his situation, and she considered him to be somewhat naive; was it wise to step into the kingdom of armoured warriors and sand snakes only to instantly reveal your vulnerability? Honourable, maybe. Foolish, maybe. Youth could gift you many qualities, but it was also a thief; it robbed you of deliberate forethought. Rhos keeps her silence, her lips a curved seal.
"I've heard all the best warriors train here... is that true?"
A laugh, now. It pours from her fine throat and drenches the air between them. He wasn't wrong, but the youthful innocence of his voice seemed to wrap Rhoswen up in amusement. She watched wryly as he shifted, attempting to ascertain some form of unspoken control over the situation - over her. The desert-woman merely cocked a hind hoof in an effortless display of confidence; she did not need to posture or ruffle her feathers to feel her slender hands around his throat. Still refusing to release a syllable into the hanging silence Rhos considered him, taller than her, larger than her, and smiled.
"Born here, train here, die here. Isn't that poetic?" A coy smile ricochets up the delicate, marble lines of her face. It mocked and welcomed him all at once. Her Pa had once called her a cyclone; a handful of wilderness; a forest fire. She wondered who this boy was? Had his father named him a hundred things too?
The edges of his eyes bristle, when the sharpness of her laugh briefly cuts through his mask. It opens without his realization, a fissure that strikes him nearly to the core. Had it not been for the weeks of mind-numbing travel, perhaps he would have turned and left. The energy and rare spark flickering off with no return in sight.
It wavered vicariously then, with a stiffened lip and an irritable whip from the boy’s tail. He could not quite decipher whether or not she had made to mock him. If there was something in the way he moved, or the tone in which he had answered her. Saoirse could not find the answer, and the quest to find such minute details in the small gestures of the mare proved troublesome.
He can’t help his quick response however, regardless of the rhetoric. It lilts and speeds off without warning or thought. There is no energy left to spare for thought…
“Mm… sounds homely to me.” The boy offers a weak grin.
“Who? Why no one, really… A stranger, a wanderer.” A soft sigh rolls off his lips. His verdant gaze leads away into the crowds, the odd buildings – foreign and alien under his scrutiny.
“They gave me a name when I was born. Saoirse. If that’s what you meant.”
A brief pause passed, before he centered his gaze on her eyes. Without hesitation, or second thoughts – or fears to absorb his outward soul. The boy carried on, with the brief hope of rest and dreams to be made ahead.
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