[P] [NOON FEAST] I'm not your idol.

[Leviathan]

IT MUST BE LONELY

when you're up there looking down

He hasn't even had the chance to meet the Champions of the court, an age old position he's even occupied himself, once a warrior. The blood of fighters roils in his veins, and it will never fade from him. He'd been a soldier, but authority never really sat well with Leviathan; listening to them is the equivalent of in one ear and out the other, until he's deemed them respectable. Too many march with their heads held high and an authority born of privilege rather than experience and worth. Rather than trials to earn the spot.

The old scar that runs from his left shoulder and down his spine seems to tingle with the thought. The fight with the teryr those years ago . . . it's something he longs for. A Solterra built on cooperative effort, a great hunt that he's sorely missed.

But that's the past, a Solterra that is written in memories and spoken between citizens, rather than living it.

Thus, Leviathan has turned himself to being a Merchant, and hoping to meet a damn Champion so he can move himself to being a blacksmith again. He's missed his little shack, with the cobwebs strewn between old weapons once again, in horrible shape, like it had been the day he had stepped into it those years ago. Of course he comes when there's a new Sovereign crowned, and a festival lifts its head.

Part of him hopes to potentially see old faces, but he doubts it. Bexley. Torstein. Seraphina. They're all names that only live in his head at this point.

The smells waft over him as he wanders among the other citizens of Solterra, towering over most of them and catching glances cast toward him and his scarred body. He knows how he looks, but he doesn't give a shit about the rumors that swirl around him. Leviathan, the monster warrior that had crawled out of the Teryr's cave itself.

His lips purse, and he dips his head a moment to sniff at a cake, only to lift up once more with a wrinkle of his nose, taking a sidestep and pausing as he nearly bumps someone. His head turns with a gruff snort, large ears swiveling forward and a growl in his throat before he shakes his head a little, glancing over the pegasus. "So you're Adonai, the new Sovereign?" There is no greeting, mostly because he doesn't think anyone remembers who he is.

He's nothing but a phantom in Solterra, one from the older days, lifting his head again as if he matters.

@Adonai

[Adonai]

and did you know 
the liberty bell is a replica

❦

It did not take very long for the epithet to spread.

Sun-kissed king. I had heard it first from the warrior Galileo, after crowning him with the Solonia wreath. You honor me, I’d said, my surprise worn with the ease of one who has grown up accepting epithets like roses tossed onto a stage.

Eminence of the Sun. First Blessing. Cleric of Virtue. Instead of gifts, my continued diligence into the brooding age of late adolescence had been rewarded by my tutors with ever loftier appendices to my name. It was a reciprocal process. The more honors I accrued like currency under their tutelage, the brighter the offerings laid at their scholarly altar. 

I did not resent them for this. I prided myself on seeking no oath of love, apart from the purely contractual, the purely obligatory, from anyone. In a fit of anger Mernatius had once called me unfeeling; and my siblings, I think, have never seen it as anything more than my nature. 

Nature, or nurtured? In any case—I am no longer so naive.

I am balancing a platter of artfully arranged figs, milky dew still dripping from their just-cut stems, when a gruff voice to my left distracts me from finding a place on the table to set them down. 

"So you're Adonai, the new Sovereign?"

I cannot place the voice and so I turn, a smile smoothed carefully into place. "I am." 

I am eclipsed by the shadow that drapes over me, cast by a figure who must rival Galileo in height. He is standing with his back to the sun, haloed by light, his features scrubbed out by shadow. He offers no name of his own, though from his bulk alone—I flick my eyes to his neck. It is bare; he does not wear the golden collar of the old generals.

I rest the teetering tray on a free square of worn wood, before offering a safe greeting. "I hope you are enjoying the festivities?" 

There is room, at the end of my question, for him to offer a name.

@Leviathan

[Leviathan]

IT MUST BE LONELY

when you're up there looking down

Levi has never truly been one for socializing or gatherings, things like this. He feels too out of place, too scarred for a place that seems to place value on looks at times, especially in the upper class at times. He's always been the one that lingers on the edges, and bares his sharp teeth at those that cast glances at him and then speak with a stiff posture. Even as a king in his own right, he had been that way. The crown had never fit him, too crooked and too heavy. Being cast out of it had been a blessing that at the time he had never really noticed.

Solterra had been much kinder on him, though he hadn't in turn, not for a while.

Even now, he stands before the new Sovereign much as he had done for Maxence the first time they had come together. His head tilts a little, one icy blue eye fixing on the gilded idol that stood before him.

For all his lack of social niceties, Leviathan can read the room, and his current company. A step to the side with heavy hooves, and his shoulders roll just slightly. "I've never been one for big gatherings, but it's been a while since I've seen anyone in Solterra. Guess I was expecting familiar faces." He pauses, but only for a moment.

"I'm Leviathan."

He wears no gold or armor, no gilded pretty things that dangle off of him. He once had, perhaps, when he had been foolish and young and showing off his stories. Now he wears them as scars and old trophies, much like the Elder Teryr bones that lay in the blacksmith's shack that no one has touched since he first left.

Part of him wants to say something, but the words that come to mind aren't very nice. He doesn't know this Adonai, not like had learned Torstein or Maxence or Seraphina. His judgement is reserved, as it always is with anyone he meets.

@Adonai