An expansion of lungs drawn taut, a bow upon a string, as a hazel body shifted against its bed. Not linen and silk, never the plush comforter of some broad, extravagant spread. She woke as a snake in its nest of sand, the flare of her nostrils drawing in grit, until the grind of her taut jaw punished grains of desert beneath her molars. Hardly a lady rolling from her chaise, her body turned harshly upon the tomb in which she lay.
Death surrounded her. A perimeter of wondrous, fatalistic splendor. The catacombs were a dim lit vision, cast into light by the moony saucers of her dizzied eyes. The lie of her dreams unraveled like thread, spooling at her feet in tattered silk, as though her unconscious self had fought to free her from its tangles. She was trapped in a web, ensnared within the mirages of a Solterran mage.
A distressed viper, her pretty scales starved for sunlight, the parched plush of her lips chapped and painful. Her abdomen heaved as she shifted, hard, upon the hefty weight of her side. Boneless and heavy all at once; a wild dog lost in the dark.
She groaned as she sat upright, as the darkness of her world swam into her vision. Where—where?
(Her appetite for more pushes her onward, drives her further into the catacombs as her brethren lose themselves within the winding, unending tunnels. As separate entities, as lost stars, they parade through the darkness as beacons of Solis’ light. She is but a flame in the shadows, and the darkness takes and takes—devours, until a lonely slumber fetters her to the hard floor of the tomb.
When her eyes slide shut, she is secluded; she is lost. A curse upon her tongue, a plea for vengeance, as he threads his lies betwixt her ears—
And she hates him. She hates him.)
With a tight chest, the woman forced her legs to gather beneath her. Like a teetering newborn, she swallows down the sourness of bile and the rough texture of sediment, drinking it down as though it were nectar: the desert’s sustenance for her waking, enraged soul.
How long had it been? The question was a plume among the disarray of her thoughts, a torch to beat back the frantic, gnawing worry of bewilderment. It was nearly enough to drive her to tears, if the hot press of sand upon her cheek had not sapped the dampness from her skin.
And she hungered, hungered—
Her voice was a strange interjection into the darkness as she was coaxed onto her feet and onward, compelled by the perpetuating allure of a distant star. The sun, heavy within the sky, laden with the obligation of daytime.
“Arjun,” she hissed, her voice whetted down to a hoarse blade, as though the deceiver awaited her upon the vast, unending spread of desert that lay above. She remembered that name, at least; she knew his lies, unironically, to be truth. The rest was a haze, a fog of colors and faces, and an endless litany that filled her with sorrow and love.
She was a juxtaposition of so many things, seeking the stability of certainty beneath her soles. She pushed forth, towards the mouth of the catacombs and the timorous flicker of light that beckoned her, sang to her, from the end of the tunnel.
The sun was a beacon, its rays a hymn, and she whispered the lyrics beneath her breath.
A name, her name. It was all she had.
"Hälla. Hälla."
The solitary word sang with the soft pad of her hooves.
That treacherous, wandering heart could not be put to rest. It still wanted; with jaws and teeth that were a little more gentle, it sought for any and all. Particularly now, when he knew just enough to satisfy that curiosity, but so very little that he couldn't rest without wondering.
Wondering about what was just a little further beyond the meadow, the river, creek, plains.
'And what are you doing out here old-timer?' His lip twitches in amusement over the memory of that conversation. That had been back in Nordlys, while he had been returning to Morthalion after getting away from its cobbled streets for a while. He hadn't been that old. Certainly had had a lot of life left in him.
He did now, but still, the reality of his situation was an even heavier cloak to carry than the one he currently did. No matter the blood, sweat, tears, that stained that red fabric of his, those memories and waves of guilt and sorrow could never overcome the looming certainty of all the tomorrows to come.
Perhaps, it was that impending reality that pushed through his uncertainty when he saw those first dunes beyond the plains. Or, perhaps, it was his love for such arid places — places that would always remind him of Dirtharest and the scorching land that constructed her. That darling, optimistic side of him (one that continued to live on despite his pain and grief) liked to believe it was the later.
Even then, if that was the case, he could not help how the sand made his throat tight.
(If he looked up long enough, searched long enough, would he find the silhouette of her? Of her wings, dipped in gold with minor flares of flames trailing behind her. Would he be able to let out a piercing hello in the form of a whistle and be able to hear her echoing roar in reply?
Would he scale the crest of a dune and find the small camp they had come to create together?
No. No, he would not.)
As if the grains of this place knew he longed for another, they wrapped around each step he took in consolation. For it was the closest thing to affection, comfort, they could give him. They did not dare to hinder his progress, but they made note of it. Each place he steps, the side his cloak hangs off, is marked by them beneath the sun.
He knows such places well enough to know that his path will not remain for long. A part of him worries over knowing that, for he does not know if he can handle remaining in such a place for long. Not after the months and months he sequestered himself away in another just like it. That worry does not affect him beyond making him glance over his shoulder and back from where he came from.
Glancing to the sky, he marks the cardinal direction — just to be sure.
~
He knows the illusions and games of such places as these; knows better than to believe it with only his eyes before actually being in the presence of whatever it might be he is looking at. This is not something he learned only from the desert, for he can remember the time he ran into his daughter and believed her to be the result of him possibly going senile.
It's a sour memory, one that causes a downcast expression to overcome his face as he glances down at where the fluid grains of the desert part. His treacherous, intrigued mind compels him to walk alongside this oddity.
Something is below. It's nothing that moves (if something does, he dismisses it, for this place is a traitorous one), just ground that is given a spotlight by the sun above.
He finds himself wondering. Just enough that he is driven further to look; to look until an ear involuntarily twitches at something breaking through the static air of this land. Then, a figure. One that breaks free from the place he does not know acted like a prison for her.
Avallac'h knows nothing, and it is why he does what one with such a heart like his would.
Concerned, his head is held high as he continues to look to the smaller figure. "Hello?" He calls out, accented voice carrying itself across the long meters that separate them. Not allowing his concern to make him rush over, Avallac'h continues to progress closer, worry weighing down his legs. "Are you okay? Do you require any help?" He didn't know the individual, but that had never mattered to a man like him.
He had given his cloak to keep one warm once, had laid it on the ground for another to rest on another time. He had laid down by another in a cold morning by the sea to offer what comfort her could, had approached the battered body of someone he didn't know another time to help.
She glows. Her heavy strands of black hair slide /
Like serpents over somber, blood-red plush.
☼
The darkness of the catacomb spat her out as a hearth might an ember. She stumbled free blindly, the shock of the sunlight causing her to stumble, to squint, and to bare her teeth at the dazzling midday star. Between her heaving breaths, each one drinking in a lungful of fresh air, she samples the hostility of her surroundings. The air is dry, as though every ounce of moisture has been wrung like a rag and dispensed some place far grander than here.
Her cracked lips parted as she adjusted to the glare, a foreleg lifted defensively and the solid point of a whetted horn brandished towards the blinding sky. No sooner had she broken free from the sands did she fall to her knees, bowing before the deserts of her home; perhaps to Solis himself.
But no God grabs her withers betwixt a thumb and forefinger; no ray of sunshine lifts her from her bed of sediment to stand strong, to strand proud, once more.
She is alone. Her flame does not sing, her heart does not quake with the weight of camaraderie. There is only the solitary sound of her blood as it pumps through her ears, a gushing accompaniment to the sparse howl of wind. The grit was warm against her flesh, and she sank against it willingly, acquiescing to the starved weariness of her languid body.
In some ways, the waking woman felt boneless, unable to gather her feet beneath her and move forward.
In other ways, she was drawn like a bow, the thin arch of her nape made to coil, to strike.
She opted to try neither option, enjoying, instead, the quaint misery of letting the sun burn her imprint into the coarse bed upon which she lay. It was no time at all before the sheen of sweat came to lay over her dapples, her body quivering with life.
If she could burn, then she could breathe—if she could breathe, she was alive.
Hello?
As a waking beast, the woman was gathering her limbs quickly—but then, more ungainly newborn than she was a basilisk of the deeps. The sand seemed to slip beneath her hooves as she lurched gracelessly to all fours, the milky white of her eyes drinking in the blinding glare that haloed this stranger.
His voice was rich; and it was, undoubtedly, a strange interlude to the roughness of such a place. The concern was unmistakable, though not enough to unwind the tension that bunched in her muscles. The vision of him unfurled in chestnut and flaxen, and the blood-red of his gilt cloak, kissing the sand beneath it in a low cast shadow.
The man stood a head taller than she, and yet her chin lifted without deference, heedless of the squall of her own life. The knowingness that she’d emerged from cobwebs and skeletons lay only with her, and the pride within her moony eyes—eyes that stared back at her, some feet away—could not be stamped out by the desert.
(Feinted, of course; the fear would come later, when the wretched befuddlement of her circumstances sank upon the horizon like the sun, leaving her encloaked in darkness and memories once more.
For now, though—for now, she could stand proud.)
Do you require any help?
Her tongue was leaden behind a cage of teeth, and her breast swelled with uncertainty, her heart fluttering, as she gazed upon him. But she was not doe-eyed; she was not prey.
“And what,” she breathed, strengthening her voice. “What would make you think I require any help?” There was something lilting, almost musical, to her words—not even entombment could wipe the guarded apprehension from her brow.
The desert was a land of survival—and weakness was a trait only of the dead.
(But she came from a forest, too; where things could be soft, could be cool; where water kissed her skin in crystalline drops…
Or had that just been the dream?)
The dizziness of her blinking, of her shaking head, betrayed the truth that lay within the shadow of her words. So, too, did the teetering of her steps as she inched forward, swaying.
But in her sluggish adjustment to the daylight came another realization, one that fixed her eyes on him like daggers.
It had the sight of the auburn body crumbling towards the ground that had drawn his eyes to the other in the first place; was what had brought forth his concern. Had he not seen that, he still would have spoken to the individual — minus the questions that cleared a path to him being able to help, of course.
It was easy to see the moment his curious greeting reached the other. Quick to rise, in a desperate enough manner that made them flounder, it was clear they were far from put together. That endless well of care he carried deep within his chest encouraged him closer, and he understood the reason behind such a rushed emergence from the hot bed of sand.
Avallac'h knew he was no threat, but she did not.
He cared nothing for her lack of veneration — he needed no such thing anyway. Instead, he accepted that defiant flame that shined brightly in how she raised her head. A head painted with elaborate markings and a pair of eyes that replicated his own.
(He did not once think on how they reminded him of the many mages back at the Court, how each individual that had been marked in such a way would forever be alienated for the rest of their lives there.)
The dignity that burned in her stare was commendable, and just as he accepted that proud tilt to her head, so did he accept and acknowledge that.
He even accepted the manner in wish she spoke to him. Crude as it was.
Were he younger, a little more daring like he once was, he would have brought up in a rather frank manner how she had just been on the ground mere moments ago, clearly struggling to stand. Now, with age and kindness in him that always -regardless of what- asked him to be a little more gentle, he did so in a much more refined manner.
"Forgive me but," his head angled down, modest, "you were just struggling to stand. Although, if you would like for me to forget that, I can try my best to do that." Despite the playful, lightheartedness that could be gleamed from his words, there was no note of it in his voice. His words were a simply way to diffuse the tension that rested upon her.
They were also an out for her, one that allowed her to say 'yes, let's pretend it never happened.' After all, he wouldn't push unless he thought it necessary to.
He wouldn't push unless the way she quickly blinked and rocked her head to force her mind to find itself became more concerning. He could control himself from worrying too much.
She faltered forward, and he was unable to repress the way his steps mirrored her own, bringing him closer. She hadn't given him a clear signal, however, that he was welcomed to come any closer; that he was welcomed to touch her and lend her support in the form of his own body to lean against.
He would only move and push if he became more worried. He swore that to himself.
Concern pulling down on his lips, they parted to begin asking if he could help but her voice beat his own before he could. Like a mere target, he was pinned beneath her sharp glare, but it was still not enough to keep him from watching the way she held herself up.
He was ready to catch her if she fell.
"Avallac'h, that is my name." He answered willingly. "And I do not come from anywhere near here." That was the easiest way to explain it. Although, if she asked for a better answer, he knew he would do his best to give one. Once she was a little more stable.
He doesn't demand to know who she is — her own well-being is more important.
Fearless enough, he asks her once more: "Are you alright? Do you want to rest?" Invisible fingers slid his cloak free from around his neck. "I can spread this out for you, if you like?"
She glows. Her heavy strands of black hair slide /
Like serpents over somber, blood-red plush.
☼
The glare of the too-bright sun began to fade as her eyes adjusted, their white sheen never diverting as she watched him, a dark silhouette taking the more distinctive shape of a man. He was kind enough to see through her façade with courtesy, and Hälla marked the dip of his chin with a scored tally of triumph. The pale lashes of her eyes twitched, fringing the eggshell glower of her countenance in a look of distrust. His chivalry was placed within the recesses of her mind, an armorless knight who stood, perhaps unfittingly, among the desert.
She wondered, indeed, where it was he came from.
Her eyes flashed in answer to his words, the corner of her lips spasming with something betraying wry humor. “By all means,” she agreed coolly. “Forget about it.” Hälla spoke as if, somehow, echoing his offer would be a command of her own making. Her leonine tail flicked as her chin remained at its incline, beholding him with a drawn brow.
Even as her knees knocked, she stood proud. Even as the desert that was meant to be her home slipped beneath her feet, her hooves hungry for traction, she didn’t dare to break the steady hold of their shared eye contact, whether to intimidate him or to gauge his intention, she couldn’t be sure.
More likely, it was to watch how he watched her—to see how he mirrored her step forward, to assess the concerned slope of his aged countenance. Beside the lightness of his words, it was almost enough to thaw her bitterness. Almost.
The venom remained, but she tucked the fangs away.
She wet her parched lips as he made his introductions, committing the delicacies of his words to memory.
(She remembered being perceptive, being intuitive—she remembered her hunger to know the deeper intricacies of a person, and to unravel what made their gears turn. For him, she would wager it to be concern and comfort; to be warmth and stability. The vacancy of her mind left ample room for the details to occupy, and so she drank each one in with fervor.)
“Avallac’h from elsewhere, then,” she echoed. He didn’t ask for her name, and she didn’t yet offer it, focusing instead on righting her hooves beneath her. Her gaze only dropped to turn towards the horizon, another aimless (purposeful) step taken forward.
She’d just woken. How could it be, then, that her first encounter could be with someone so… kind?
Her dreams (memories?) had taught her to expect otherwise.
He reiterated his concern for her, and she drew in a breath, dragging her eyes back to where he stood. “I’ve rested for long enough,” how long, exactly, she couldn’t say—neither could she say where her hooves intended to take her. Once she gathered the strength, the stability, she knew her legs would devour the ground—and take her some place far, far from the tombs.
Her mouth twitched again as his mind unclasped the cloak that tangled around his throat, drawing the red cloth from the dun of his skin. Her body angled towards him, a brow quirked as the flutes of her ears perked. Dry amusement shone in her eyes, though her expression remained otherwise unchanging.
“Are you asking me to rest, Avallac’h?” She shook her head, daring another step forward. His intention was innocent, she could glean that much without effort, but the dark of the tomb had been wretchedly empty of laughter. "Don't be so quick to undress for my benefit," was her reply to his courtesy, but the apprehension within her voice had ebbed just a hair.
A bit of sand gave way beneath her foot, but she stubbornly righted herself and walked forward, angling an inch passed him. She had no intention of lingering over her would-be grave.
“Put your cloak on and come with me,” she instructed, her tail flicking as she bypassed him. “Do you always look for damsels in the desert?”
It had been no gentle request. Domineering—that is what had composed the reiterated words that he had formed and placed before her. Like a kind offering from a pariah to the one they pleaded to accept them back into their good graces. Not even the wry twitch of humor that played at the edge of her lip completely eased the note.
"As you wish." He had muttered under his breath after her command. He would not bring up the fact she had been on her knees anymore. He would do his best to forget the image, but not the concern it had formed inside of him.
He knew she probably meant nothing by the words, but Avallac'h was a man with a more tender soul now. Quick to withdraw and hesitant to infringe unless he believed he needed to.
It did not fluster him, made no feeling of agitation or annoyance rise up inside of him. Rather, it made that tender well that harbored all the kindness he had to offer nervously close up. A heavy slab, one that was composed of guilt, blood, heavy chains, placed itself on the lip of the well, sliding slightly over the mouth of it. His ears, alert, tipped back. The only sign that he was apologetic and meant no harm.
Like the tomb of a supreme being, the slab that had appeared was prepared to clog up that well completely. It was ready to silence it and render him mute and still.
It hadn't yet, though, and that is why he would continue to try and offer help. Why he attentively mirrored her swaying steps. Harsh words had hardly deterred him before. In the past, they had made him more stubborn, but that was a lifetime ago.
Not commenting on the way she repeated the information he had given her back (Avallac’h from elsewhere—from nowhere, everywhere. The man with no home, failed king, destroyer of lives. Kidnapper and killer of children. It could have been worse, he supposes.) he continued to carefully watch every movement she made. Unlike before, the step she took this time is not one he reflected.
Some faint wonder pulled at his brows at the words she said in response to his proposal of resting. Furthermore, it found him slightly questioning why he had so foolishly offered her his cloak. (Because it was the kind thing to do; the right thing to do.)
Her words were also ones that had him wondering about what exactly she had been doing beneath the sandy grounds of the desert. Why had she been out here, stumbling from whatever the sun had graciously shown him through the cracked floor? He wanted to know, but he would rather she—
Body locking up, his head twitched humorously, showing his surprise and shock at the words she had voiced.
Well then.
A hesitant smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, "I'll be sure to keep that in mind." He kindly answered, something a little warmer, a little more Avallac'h creeping into his voice that was combined with just a tender hint of bashfulness. "Are you—"
Put your cloak on and come with me,
...Well then.
Looking at her curiously, he merely shook his head (perplexed, surprised, confused — he didn't know), accepting her command and wrapping his cloak back around his neck in well-practiced movements. He waited a moment after she had passed, allowing her to gain space before he turned and diligently followed after her.
"Not purposefully, no. Would it be too bold of me to say that I'm surprised you would call yourself such? After all, when one thinks of a damsel, they think of one in distress." He continues to keep up easily with her. "And I was given the impression you are not in distress—and need no help. Or... was I correct in assuming you did?" There is no note of superiority in his voice, only one that softly inquired after her own well-being.
Giving one last look over a shoulder to where whatever laid hidden beneath the ground was, he returned his attention to her. "Might I ask what it is you were doing out here? Where it is you're going?" She had just started walking, after all, going in a direction different than the one he, himself, had come from. That is if the direction of the sun above them was any indication.
So fierce is the passion that burns within my heart, a raging forest fire, unstoppable and all consuming —
Short-lived satisfaction flooded her veins at the sudden rigidity of his stance, as though her words had shone a spotlight on his white eyes, each of them having turned to saucers. It gave her the reprieve she needed to push onward, heedless of the ungainliness of her legs, and to leave the tomb behind her. She didn’t have to peer back into the sand to see the mouth from which she’d crawled, born from a den of musk and bones within the sand, like the cub of some desert cat—its maw remained open, hungry and waiting, and she had no intention to delve back into its midst.
Hälla moved with stilted urgency, only the dizziness of the world stalling her willingness to sprint, and she was mindful of how he turned to accompany her without question. Whether he was wise or foolish, the desert woman could not decide.
But he was kinder, undoubtedly, than the grit that had spat her out; or the haughty men of her nightmares; or the flame-kissed serpents that had guided her into the tomb.
Her spine drew taut as her head lifted, the glare of the sunlight not yet enough to drown out the sight of her ambition. Her mind remained a dizzily muddled thing, and she knew the bursts of memory would intensify in the days to come. She knew in the same way that her lungs knew to draw breath; that inevitable, insatiable, instinctual tide. When the time for remembering came, she would not be able to deny it.
The realization didn’t stop the words that slipped from her lips like tattered silk, as coarse as they were soft. Nor did it keep her from angling her head back to glance at him, her lips clamping together, betraying the tension of a slight, feline smile.
Hälla did not deign to immediately answer his inquiry.
“You worry a great deal for others. For strangers,” she observed with frankness, her moony eyes lingering upon his countenance as she walked with confidence—the mare could’ve stumbled to her knees and she would have, even then, risen without consequence.
As it were, she marched on with relative ease.
“What would you call me then, if not a damsel? I’ve given you no name, either,” the smile she gave him betrayed only mild curiosity. It was another gauge of character, however abstract it might’ve been. Beyond that, it was easier than testifying to the distress that did flutter within the depths of her heart; disarming in its mounting strength as she heeded the vast nothingness of their surroundings.
You knew the desert once, a sliver of her soul spoke harrowingly into her mind, pouring reservoirs of strength into her quivering muscles. Know it again.
Or was it a forest? Another splinter argued. Winding, twisting—a mirror within itself, with too few faces and too much blood. Endless warring, and boundless indifference—
Her steps stuttered, her hoof snagging upon a rock, and Hälla’s jaw ground together as she forced her focus to draw forward. Avallac’h had spoken again, and the threatening allure of conflicted memories that ached to drown her. She forced herself to heed neither of them, even as his question forced her to confront the disarray.
Where was she going?
Solterra. Never beyond the desert; never outside Solis’ arms— Away. Get away.
She didn’t know.
“I was resting,” she replied, as though the answer had been clear. It wasn’t a lie—just a sugarcoated truth. “For far too long.” How long, she still couldn’t say for certain. And despite not knowing her destination, she drew in a breath to surround her fluttering heart, her gaze steeled as she continued onward. “But for now, away from this hellish place.”
“What about you?” She diverged swiftly from the topic of her. Whether she legitimately cared for his answer, she couldn’t say for certain—it was a worthy distraction, either way. “What brings you out here?”
Had she asked, Avallac'h would have told her both.
Wise and foolish. That was what he was. For he learned and took what he did to heart, yet some of those things were not enough to stop him from doing certain things. Forever would the once murderer hold out a tender hand, and make himself vulnerable.
It would never be able to erase the blood that stains his cloak, or his mind, but Avallac'h figured out long ago that wasn't the point. What he wanted to do was a far too innocent thing — far too childish. A wish for an idealistic world he knew would never be obtained, but one he hoped for. It's why nothing held him back from turning towards this woman of the desert (like one of his daughters) and blindly following after her.
Until he was shown otherwise, Avallac'h would never have any qualms about trailing after her.
Meeting her similar gaze, he did not deny her observation. He knew he did worry—always would. It is through his worrying that strangers became something more; through his worrying, he came to form bonds with others that he cares for to this day. Although, it is also how he appeases that acidic part of his mind that says he is undeserving of anything.
(It won't change anything, won't fix what he has done, but he hopes.)
He wants nothing more than to help.
Ears fluttering forward at her curious inquiry, he answers in a manner that is so easy it's clear to see he is being nothing but truthful. "Ma'am, perhaps—or would you prefer Miss? Or, Madam, even. Although, I do find that term to be too formal now for one such as I." Even if it does fall from his tongue easily.
It's effortless for him to speak, seeing as to how he is genuinely curious to know what she would desire for him to call her. "Unless, of course, you have another reasonable thing you wish, instead, to be used? I would gladly use another term." Or, he could ask that she give him her name. He could easily use the fact that he had already given his own as a form of leverage, even, but for one: he doubted it would work, and two: didn't want to press her to give him anything she didn't want to.
Besides, just because he was willing to tell her his name so easily, answered every question she had asked so far readily, didn't mean he wasn't keeping his own things away.
Stranger— that is what they were to one another. Avallac'h was just able to make himself seem like he wasn't one to many.
As she had pointed out, he showed far too much care for strangers. That's why his body was quick to jerk forward as she stumbled, head tilting his dark horns away to avoid causing harm when he caught her. She caught herself, though, and he recomposed himself, gazing at the movement of her legs as he willed his heart to settle after the jolt her stumble had made run through him.
Forget about it.
So he did.
Letting out a breath, he moved past it. Moved past it and patiently waited for her reply. The first of which was a clear indicator that she did not want to speak about what she had been doing out here. Despite being curious, wanting to know, he wouldn't push or chase after the topic like a foolish hound. He didn't wish to invite her ire.
Even then, he did ponder on the term she gave this place, the way she simply wanted to get away. Avallac'h understood running away, but whether that was what she was doing, he could only speculate.
(He could ask—might have in another life, but he let it be.)
Humming in reply to her question, he directs his gaze to her, only able to catch the side of her face from where he walks behind, and off to her side. "Simple curiosity. I am from elsewhere, I am sure you recall, and I have been here for hardly any significant amount of time." Unafraid (trusting) of anything happening he glances around the dunes. There is nothing new to see, but it is still special to look at. Even if this type of environment has lost some of its allure from his months in seclusion.
"I merely wished to see what was beyond Delumine—the Dawn Court. Nothing more." Simple. Not once did his answer suggest that he was restless, or unable to put to sleep that wandering heart of his. But it revealed enough that Avallac'h knew -more than likely- she would not wish to pursue the topic.
"Are you aligned with one of the Courts?" The word 'courts' would always leave a sour taste on his tongue, but it was hardly anything he couldn't swallow. Besides, a simple word such as that would never be able to keep him from speaking.
—like held breath,
the stars drew in their panting fires
☼
Through the truthful courtesy of his reply, Hälla could not decide if the nature of his words were refreshing, or infuriating. In some ways, he’d been a rare oasis awaiting her at the lip of darkness, unwittingly hauling her from the tomb in which she’d crept, the slumbering embers of vengeful wrath luring her from the crypt. He cleaved through the disarray with the caring attention of his presence, and it inspired her ire as much as it did her gratitude.
In other ways, she again thought him something of a fool, and she was unable to glean from the fuzziness of her thoughts what it was he thought he’d acquire from this interaction—for surely there was something he pursued. She considered that she appeared more distressed than she cared to, an easy target who wore a necklace of scars.
She had survived plenty—years of darkness creeping through with the languid shuttering of slow-blinking eyes, one grueling day after the next, until even her dreams were traitorous. She had endured the wretchedness of being twisted between two realities.
The first, another life entirely, and yet more agonizing than idyllic—
The second, the disarming reality of her untimely imprisonment within the catacombs.
Memories, emotions, were stirring unbidden now. She continued to swallow them down, unable to entertain the game beyond a brisk introduction.
“Hälla,” it was better than any of the options he’d supplied, even if they’d, true to her intent, lent her a mirror of his character. “My name is Hälla.”
The words rolled off of her tongue like silk, a pleasant truth within this bitter world of lies, and they served as a gentle lock upon the dam that’d threatened to break free, as if her too-full mind was momentarily contented by the release of information. Breathing her identity into the tepid air was a balm; a trapping of bandages that lay thinly over her many wounds.
It will heal, she thought, teeth gritted. All of it.
Whatever it may have been.
She didn’t notice how he braced in preparation to catch her as she stumbled, and it was undoubtedly for the better. Even so, her pricked ears twitched in his direction at his reply—almost idle chatter to fill the arid silence—and she drew in a breath.
Elsewhere. She hadn’t forgotten, of course, and she wondered if she came from elsewhere, too. He had asked her, but the only home she could immediately recall were the catacombs; her only family the skeletons and the cobwebs, and the bemoaning cries of… others.
Delumine, though—she knew that name. As she knew the name Solterra, Terrastella, Denocte; each of them venomous and harmonious, beautiful and wretched, within her mind’s eye.
His question ran in line with her thoughts, resonating through the boundless, splintering walls of her conscious. Small pieces flaked off, aching to remember, while others remained tightly fettered to their assigned cages. Whatever pain lay behind the bars, she both dreaded and yearned to know.
It would be a truth, at least—she hoped. It would be something other than Arjun’s lie.
“I was of Day Court, once,” she said slowly. And perhaps she would be again. She wondered if it still existed, if the solitary piece of her identity remained beyond the tombs. “And some place else, although I can’t yet remember.” The statement betrayed some measure of vulnerability, and as with every other piece she’d deliberately laid before him, it was an indirect measure of character.
His response to that statement would speak volumes—even if she could already guess to the care he would impose.
Smoothly, Hälla continued, her cloven hooves still tracking lightly over the warm sand. The dunes seemed to span on for eternity, and she could do nothing more than slow her pace to walk beside him. He was a welcome sight, compared to the infinity of sand.
“You’ve come a long way for a mere wanderer,” she observed. His words betrayed nothing, but his actions did. “Running from something? Someone, perhaps?”
And he left it at that. Let it be as plain and simple as he did acquiescing to her request to forget about it. Sometimes, things could be that straightforward, and they often were for him.
Her face now had a name attached to it, and as with every other he had met, Avallac'h made ample room inside of his mind for the memory of it to rest and live. He wouldn't forget, just like he would never forget the names of those he met while the Sovereign of Sanus, just as he would never forget the nameless he came across during the murky nights of battle.
Each stranger was important.
Keeping pace easily, the sand beneath him still acting as if it knew a piece of him belonged to it, he was able to direct his focus wherever he pleased without worry. Where Hälla had stumbled, Avallac'h knew he would not. It was a reassuring thing, to know that he did not need to fear despite the anxiety he felt lingering just behind his heart.
He had known, since the first day he had crossed the land bridge connecting Dirtharest to the rest of Nordlys, that the arid heat of such places held a spirit he could find some fellowship in. Barren lands such as this had given him many things, and he is sure it would continue to do so until his last breath.
It was a comforting thought.
Carefully he listened to her slow words, an ear flickering to the side being the only thing to betray his interest. "In due time, I'm sure. As with many things." He remarked in response to her not remembering. Her show of vulnerability is not something he would take for granted. He had already caught on the evasiveness with which she had spoken—not wanting to reveal too much and wishing to not pursue the conversation if it concerned him asking questions about her. He wouldn't push.
No, he merely took that piece of information and tenderly set it beside everything else he had gleaned from her remarks, and their unexpected meeting.
Resting for too long, emerging from beneath the coarse grains, once of a Court but now no longer.
When, at least, her pace slowed he gave her a kind smile. Whether she saw it or not hardly mattered to him. If she did see it, though, he would be glad that she would be able to see his appreciation for her doing so. She would be able to see the silent comfort and assurance he placed before her.
While he might not push, however, it was clear that she had no qualms about doing so.
(He is reminded of another, one that he had followed after just as he did Hälla, one he had walked through meadowed fields with and who had pushed until he had been forced to reveal the wounds he kept wrapped up and hidden because she wouldn't stop asking and he was too compliant to tell her no.)
"I am no wanderer—unless my understanding of what one is called when part of the populace of a Court has changed." Avallac'h knew it hadn't. "But running—no I don't believe so. Though, I have been wrong before, but I like to believe my days of running are well behind me." Were they? Was he done? Had he left the burnt world of Edana under the guise of no longer being able to wait because he was still running?
"As I said, I merely wished to see what I can. My plan is to stay here for quite some time, after all. I find spending my time lingering, doing nothing, hardly worthwhile. Perhaps you believe differently?" He wonders, keeping up the flow of the conversation with ease.
Her question gives him some courage. "I know I have no right to ask, and I need no answer but... are you? Running from something, that is." His voice is soft, not demanding anything from her and betraying his caution. He had no right to know, after all. Learning about another, knowing such things, is a privilege that Avallac'h does not believe himself worth having from someone who he has just learned the name of.
