Pravda had not first intended to stop in Denocte, but the last time he had visited the Night Court had been during times of peace, many months ago. Since then, he had come to understand that they were undergoing a significant amount of strife. Not nearly as much as Solterra, perhaps, he thought. It seemed as though all of Novus were subjected to some sort of discord, if only through their relations to other Courts. He was only a scholar, but it seemed foolish to him. He had heard rumours of terrorism and looming war—but Pravda struggled to know what to make of it. He had never known war, aside from the vast and many chronicles in Biblioteka Syyaschnennikoy, the Library of Priests, and to him those had only seemed like so many stories.
To see the palpable concern and anxiety on people’s faces, however, was another matter entirely. Pravda felt inept at quelling their concerns, and soon stopped commenting on anything regarding the current state of affairs in his new world. A snarky, bitter voice continued to remind him, what do you truly know of Novus? and a softer, even crueler voice continued to answer: Nothing.
However, he was determined to learn. And so he travelled to the Night Court by himself, rather than continuing to rely on secondhand accounts of what had occurred. His curiosity had certainly gotten the better of him. But, as far as Pravda was concerned, curiosity was no sin.
The spring air was pleasant, albeit cool, and his travel went more quickly than he expected. He first found temporary lodging—a night or so, was all a weary traveller needed—before leaving the establishment to visit the marketplace. Pravda knew from experience that, as far as gossip went, it would be the most reliable of sources. He always felt… almost as though he could not trust himself, at the Night Court, full of such passion and vibrancy.
The music that came from the market sounded like a festival, and he meandered into the bustling streets, delighted at the spark and shine of moonstones against his hooves. His nostrils filled with the scents of exotic spices and foods, and around a corner a vendor sought to sell exotic animals, as well—he noticed creatures in miniatures he thought mythical, newly hatched griffins and large serpents, a three-headed dog that bayed at him as he walked past—certainly Pravda was imagining it?
But he continued, regardless—weaving through silken cloth that fluttered in the wind, depicting intricately woven scenes of magic or history. He nearly paused to discuss the nature of the vendor’s ware—for example, what was depicted on the glimmering cloth—when he instead opted to continue to the docks, for whatever reason. Perhaps a breath of fresher air.
He crested the edge of them, where sailors were busy tying masts or docking ships. Being that it was around midday, many had paused to eat their meals and Pravda walked by without comment. He stopped on the furtherest edge of the dock, staring out toward the sea. He’d heard of the new island… and everything within him wished to explore it, but first he wanted to see how the Night Court was faring. He wanted to know—
And then his thought was cut abruptly off. What, exactly, did he want to know? And Pravda did not have any specifics, any concrete idea…
Debrodetel’Nyy had had no seasons. The knowledge of the place had always been second-nature to him. The markets were not surprising, or full of alluring, mysterious goods. And the thought of this put pits in his stomach, and restlessness in his limbs. He cast a glance over his shoulder, seeking… what? Pravda did not know, but he began to trail back toward the Markets, his curled ears cocked toward the gossip of the sailors as he returned to the bustle, music, and spice of the vendors.
@Pravda "speaks"
Sirius did not have much experience with society. He couldn’t even give you the definition of the word, had you asked for it.
He had been taken as a foal after all, and trained rather than raised. His life before now had been barren of many basic education or socialization, save for the bigger horses that would chase him across the field during the few hours they were allowed at pasture. Besides his training, life for the small pegasus had been a quiet, secluded one. And from the moment he had learned there was more to life than shackles and hunting, he had wanted more.
Is this what home looks like? he had thought to himself, when he had first set hoof in the Denoctian capitol. It was certainly more, that he couldn’t deny. He wove through the city streets, shying at every crackle of a bonfire and shout of a merchant, like a high spirited colt (which, truth be told, he was in a sense.)
Everywhere he looked, people were moving. Everywhere he went, people were calling out to him. A gypsy mare braided his forelock for him with a strand of silver ribbon that looked exactly like the starlight in his visions, and the starlight in his eyes; a baker offered him a pastry he couldn’t pronounce or remember the name of for free, just to try, and he savored every last crumb of sugar, for he had not had sugar before. There were so many things to do and see, names were passed around like candy and Sirius felt as though he were caught in a whirlwind of activity that picked him up and swept him away on its wing. It simultaneously overwhelmed him and delighted him, and he wasn’t sure if he wanted to focus on one thing or take in everything together, all at once.
He knew this wasn’t the end of the world, but he supposed he could walk these streets for a decade and still find a new face, a new shop, a new wonder.
So he wandered, enraptured by all the sights, the smells, the sounds that he has never heard before. He wanders until he reaches the end of the city, and there he stares out across the docks where the sailors walk and the ships bob peacefully tethered, out across the sea where the waves roll and kiss the sky. He looks out at the horizon, and even when the sun sits directly above him and sunlight reigns supreme, he thinks he can see the night stars winking down at him.
He stands there for a moment, taking it all in. And when he’s about to take his first step down the moor, to see those strange wooden ships up close, a figure steps into his path.
“Hello!” he calls out, and steps forward to meet the other stallion. He’s dressed in tones of white and black, but his eyes are a blue brighter than the sky (making Sirius think he, too, has been blessed in some way by the heavens, or perhaps that he was born of a tropical sea), and he wears braids similar to his own. A smile, boyish and innocent and utterly clueless, frames his lips as he looks between the stranger and the docks from which he came. And before he can stop himself, questions are bubbling like water from between his lips.
“Are you a water-traveler?” he asks, nodding towards the ships but not knowing what they’re called.
notes: ahhh finally <3 water-traveler = sailor aha
WHAT IF I READ YOU A STORY CALLED ONCE UPON A TIME, AND YOU REALISED IT WAS YOUR LIFE, SPELLED OUT ON EVERY LINE.
It is a long moment before Pravda acknowledges his own weariness; returning to the market, with all the wares, intimidates him. He does not trust himself there, with so many enticing fares, and world of strangers with many stories upon their lips. Everything is temptation; it encourages towards gluttony and sloth, toward wanton abandon… and the bustle of the crowd was so much, and so strange. His homeland was of simple equines and the occasional pegasus. It was of quiet, humble people with no excesses. Simple, and kind. He had seen the looks some of the shop owners had given him—he was of another Court, and were their eyes not narrowed in judgement, in subdued hostility? Pravda takes a deep breath and continues his trek toward the marketplace—
Hello!
Pravda starts. The boy is there so quickly, or perhaps Pravda was so careless, they nearly collide. “I’m so sorry—“ whatever stupor Pravda had been in is abruptly shook from him. He would have said more, but the smiling Denoctian is already asking him a question. “Are you a water-traveller?”
The Marwari stallion cannot help but laugh. He realises, after a moment, it might have appeared rude and amends himself. “I’m sorry. No, no I’m not.” It does not occur to him to call them sailors; no, water traveller seems far more adequate. Pravda glances over his shoulder toward the ships; he is annoyed at himself for not thinking of them as travellers, and the fancy of it fills him with an abrupt and uncharacteristic whimsy. Where could they take me? he wonders, and then: home?.
His home is somewhere far away. The longer he is in Novus, the less Pravda even believes it is a real place. It seems as though Dobrodetel’Nyy is folded somewhere in the creases of time, timeless, a god land. He had never thought of himself as god-like, until Novus. But more and more he realised the nature of ageing, and evil, and hunger—things that were mythic in Dobrodetel’Nyy were very, very real here.
Pravda steals a moment to assess the stranger; he reminds Pravda, for some reason, of a night sky just on the brink of daylight, at dawn or dusk. His eyes are silver, and otherworldly. Pravda has never seen such eyes, and stares at them a little longer than he should have.
“I wish I was, though.” The fanciful statement is out of his mouth before he can stop it. “It would be a pleasure to go wherever it was you wanted, whenever you wanted.” The capricious idea is unlike him and Pravda is surprised at himself for admitting it. Denocte is affecting you, he thinks to himself, and clears his throat awkwardly. “I am a traveller, though.” He does not go into further detail, in part because he does not know how to explain it—is he a time traveller, a soul traveller? How does one explain that they are on their Second Journey, and everything is new and strange? He does not elaborate. He only says, “I am coming from the Dawn Court.”
He clears his throat, again, and cocks his head. Despite his intention of coming to the Night Court to get information about the political climate, he has been unable to work up the nerve to ask anyone the entire morning. “Do you live here?” And excitedly, tactlessly: “Do you know anything about the war with Raum?”
Pravda is not even aware of it, but his hooves are jittering beneath him with nervous, palpable excitement. This is why he is here!
The stranger was black and white, and the absence of color on his body only further accented the color in his eyes. Blue like the sky, but he had no wings to soar through them - so he changed his original conclusion: they must be blue like the sea instead, for anyone could swim in that. Sirius stares at him with eagerness written in the lines against his face, leaning forward as he waits for an answer.
He wasn’t aware that he was holding his breath until he lets it out in a single, dejected sigh. “Oh,” he says, and although he tries to not let his disappointment show so clearly, his entire statue seems to deflate a little. Maybe his eyes weren’t ocean-blue, after all.
Sirius is already looking over the other man’s shoulder, where the ships bob along the water and the waves seem to be beckoning to him. For a moment he frowns, as he looks down towards the sailors hurrying busily along the docks, as if he can’t imagine why else the stranger would have come from there. He’s about to ask what he had been doing down there, and why his skin smelled like the salt-that-comes-from-the-ocean, or the water-that-is-not-safe-to-drink, when he catches the other man’s gaze, and again is taken aback by the clear cerulean nature of it.
It takes some effort, but he pulls his eyes away and looks over the strange black-and-white man again.
There was no collar around his throat, no tresses or hobbles on his legs. He had no name tag, giving him a number. He had no wings, nor horn, nor anything else that would make him one of their hunters.
No visible sign tethered him to any one place.
“Why can’t you?” he asks, unable to stop himself when he looks up to meet the man’s gaze again. “What’s stopping you?” He flares his wings slightly, letting the tips of his feathers brush the ground on either side of him. A traveler who couldn’t go where he wanted seemed like no traveler at all - it certainly was not the sort of traveler Sirius would wish to be.
And yet, the sudden enthusiasm that bubbles from the stranger is infectious, and Sirius can feel a renewed smile stretching across his features, brightening his face. “This is my home, yes,” he says, and waves with one wing towards the city that sprawls out behind him. “Not where ships live, here - but a good home is Denocte.” He hasn’t been here long himself, but he says the words fiercely, lifting his chest in pride.
“I hear war goes not good for us, fire was markets last week, much food burned then…” his excitement makes his words come out jumbled, his lack and grammar - and knowledge of the language - making itself known. But he shakes his head and leans closer, seemingly unaware of his own deficiencies.
“Want I to fight, but…” he frowns here. “Know how not.”
Hunting, after all, was much different than fighting.
WHAT IF I READ YOU A STORY CALLED ONCE UPON A TIME, AND YOU REALISED IT WAS YOUR LIFE, SPELLED OUT ON EVERY LINE.
ravda is taken aback by the young man’s blatant disappointment. He feels hurt for a moment, childishly, and cannot explain the sentiment. He looks past Pravda, toward the sailors and their docked ships, and Pravda cannot keep his brows from furrowing. He was thinking of easy rebuttals. Well, I’m a scholar! That had to be worth more than sailing, didn’t it? Casting a glance over his shoulder toward the surrender-white sails, he is unsure. There must be things out at sea I could never imagine.
Why can’t you.
That was a good question.
Pravda stumbled over it. Why couldn’t he?
This is where I am meant to be. How could he explain that? How could he explain this was his Second Journey, and this body was his second body? He had awoken in these lands and did not feel as if it were right for him to leave them, without knowing everything he could, without death taking him in its soft embrace. He clears his throat. “It isn’t a life for me. Just something to dream about, perhaps.” The question confuses him more than he would like. He wonders, for a moment, if he could leave—or if somewhere the power of the Priests would feel his absence, and force him back.
This is my home, yes! The youth is proud of the fact. Pravda reflects the enthusiasm with an infectious smile, one he cannot quite contain. Why do I feel this way? he finds himself wondering. There is something about the other’s genuine questions, genuine pleasure, that has Pravda feeling a joy he doesn’t quite understand. I hear war goes not good for us… the youth begins, and Pravda listens intently, the smile vanishing from his face. It is replaced by an intense engagement; he hangs on every word, taking mental note of the sentence structure, how they lack clear pronunciation… More importantly, Pravda takes note of the content.
He finds himself nodding quietly, assertively. “I’m sorry to hear that… are you training to be a soldier?” Pravda cocks his head, and after a moment—“You can always learn about soldiering from books and stories. Maybe you should visit Delumine sometime. I could share some with you.” It is an open invitation, one that Pravda offers enthusiastically. He is distracted a moment later, however, by a sweet scent that wafts from the markets—”Do you know what that is?” he asks, uncertain if it smoke, or incense, or food. Then, distractedly: "... I'm so sorry, that was rude of me... why do you want to be a soldier? To fight?" It was the last thing Pravda would ever want to do and so he asks it with genuine curiosity.
Sirius turns his pale eyes back on Pravda, staring at him with all the intensity of a hawk. His words echo through his mind, like a puzzle he can’t find a solution to that he refuses to let go of.
It’s not a life for me.
Just something to dream about.
For Sirius, his dreams had always been something he wanted. They had been freedom, and the world, and a worthy cause. And he was determined to turn dreaming into doing. That the stranger was content to let his dreams stay dreams was confusing to him, and another reminder that he was not like the others.
But then it’s Pravda’s turn to ask the questions, and Sirius forgets (temporarily) about his confusion.
“Books train soldiers?” He snaps his attention back to Pravda in an instant, considering his words slowly. “...How?” Maybe it was because he had never learned to read, or maybe it was because he had never heard books and soldiers mentioned together in the same sentence before, but the idea of needing to read to learn to fight seems simultaneously outrageous and boring. And so he’s thankful when Pravda changes the subject, even if it’s only because of a distraction (gods know Sirius himself is easily distracted, too.)
He lifts his chin, frowning as he smells the air. Pravda moves on too quickly for Sirius to make sense of the scent, or to distinguish it from all the other scents surrounding them. The ocean seems to overpower them all, befuddling his senses.
“No,” he corrects the paint, even as he lifts his head skyward and continues puzzling over the air.
“Not to fight only. I want to protect.” To do something other than hunt, to use his skills for something better. It couldn’t make up for the things he had done, for the childhood he had endured, or the people he had already hunted - but it was a start.
“Bread,” he says suddenly, turning his head to look towards the market stands. “Is smell bread?”
It was oddly familiar, considering Sirius has only ever had stale bread before, never fresh.
WHAT IF I READ YOU A STORY CALLED ONCE UPON A TIME, AND YOU REALISED IT WAS YOUR LIFE, SPELLED OUT ON EVERY LINE.
Books train soldiers?
The young man’s intense reply takes Pravda aback for a moment. The scholar is unaccustomed to such strong reactions, and he takes a moment trying to reply. After a moment, Pravda smiles a knowing sort of smile. “Books can teach you just about anything, even soldiering. There’s books on tactics and discipline and overarching strategy, which is important for any soldier to know. I’m not one myself—I’ve never been good at violence—but I read about it often.” Pravda cannot say what encourages him to add, nearly as an afterthought: “My Court is well-known for their book-keeping. I know some might not know the languages, but if you ever come and ask for me, I would be glad to help read some of them to you. Or simply show you things you might be interested in, if you’d prefer to do the reading yourself.”
It is the most Pravda has talked thus far; clearly, the subject of books and libraries is more his element than their other topics of conversation. His eyes linger on the sailors and he is as quickly distracted from them by the smell of bread as he had been by the subject of books.
No. Not to fight only. I want to protect.
The notion is curious to Pravda; although he has read of soldiers and military campaigns, in his research the idea rarely seems to focus on pure protection. Too often, such forces are used for conquering, for violence. Pravda wonders if it is different in Novus; he has nothing to compare it to. There had been no permanent military in his homeland.
“Would you like to go get some? My treat.” Pravda does not comment on Sirius’s correction, and turns to follow the scent of freshly baked bread. After a long pause, where he navigates the crowd to find, at last, the bread-stand… Pravda asks, “Are you from here, originally? Novus, I mean.”
Pravda finds himself distracted from his original objective: he had wanted to learn about Raum, and the war, and instead he is buying two loaves of bread and handing one kindly to his newfound companion. “I’m rude for not having introduced myself… I’m Pravda.”
He isn’t sure he wants to believe him - Pravda has already admit in the same breath that he is not a soldier, so what should he know about war? Or fighting? Or freedom? For a moment all he can do is stare at him, and all the things he wants to say but cannot find the words for are there in his gaze, begging for the stallion to see them.
”I read not,” he says. ”I can’t.”
And he turns away, because he doesn’t know how to say all the things he wants to.
So he’s thankful when Pravda allows him to change the subject, and the thought of bread makes him lift his head again, and the ocean that seemed to fill his chest slips away bit by heavy bit. ”Can we?” The question is slow, hesitant, the tone of a boy who does not yet know how to take things when he wants them. But there’s a shy sort of hope there, because even Sirius is wishing for the answer to be yes.”Is allowed?”
He follows along behind him like a stray, folding too-large wings tightly against his sides when all he wants to do is stretch them out, and let them carry him to wherever he wants to go. His muzzle brushes along Pravda’s flank, pressing in closely as the crowd sweeps past them on either side, like Pravda is the only thing anchoring him in the fray, and the touch of his skin the only thing tethering him to the earth.
”No,” the words sound distant, like they don’t belong to him; the bread is distracting him. ”Flew ocean across I did. Here am I now.” He takes the loaf gingerly, as if afraid it might fall apart in his grasp before he gets a chance to realize it belongs to him.
His eyes flicker, from Pravda to the vendor to the bread, and back to Pravda.
“Pravda,” he is careful to echo the same syllables as the other stallion, afraid it would be rude to not. ”How come Denocte to did you?”
And then he lifts the bread to his mouth, but it’s only after he takes the first bite that he stops himself, and mumbles a half-coherent ”Thanks,” around it.
And while Pravda had called it bread, and it smelled like bread, and it looked like bread - it tasted unlike any bread he has ever tasted before.
