[AW] almost forgotten

[Jahin]

The capitol is a mere shadow in the distance, a blur on the dark horizon behind him. It isn’t a habit of his to look back and so he doesn’t. The wind has a colder bite than usual and sand stings his eyes as he braces himself against whatever storm is coming, political or physical.   He has never heard of “Raum” before but knows only that he is a foreigner to Solterra and its customs. Jahin doesn’t much care for the throne, the capitol, or politics, but he could not forget the debt he owed Seraphina. And so he leaves the city walls after he hears that she has fallen. He owes nothing to this Raum, to this usurper, this pretender. He does not know the stranger’s motives for conquering Solterra, but nothing good can come from a foreigner on the throne. There is nothing holding him here anymore, nothing binding his allegiance to a city in turmoil. He is not sure his debt to Seraphina has been paid, but he hopes that at least in some small way, wherever Seraphina may be, dead or alive, that this was a tip of  the hat, a last salute to the fallen queen that had once saved his life. And so, after many long years of absence, he returns home to the desert. He returns with purpose in his heart and determination in his stride. He will find what remains of his people, however broken and scattered they might be. It seems too much a coincidence that it is Avdotya he finds first. She is the same as he remembered her from his life among the Davke before the rebellion. Unchanged. The same eyes of desert fire, muscles as conditioned as steel. But then again, why would he expect her to be in anyway different? Davke are not particularly known to change, nor for their “adaptability” to change. They have lived the same for thousands of years in the desert, until one day, something changed. A rebellion. And it was their downfall. But she is magnificent, regardless of her motives, there is no doubt about that. She is the Kahn of a broken people, but you would not know it by the way she moves, the way she holds her head…there is confident cunning in her eyes. Her presence is unmistakable and remarkable, her skin is the black of a sandstorm boiling on the horizon at midnight. Of course, he thinks, She is the storm that is coming.   They are within speaking distance now. Jahin motions towards the severed head with a raised eyebrow. “A gift for a new lover? Who is the lucky fellow?” these scars long have yearned for your tender caress to bind our fortunes, damn what the stars own ---

@Avdotya