Eik does not doubt for a moment that the boy before him is capable of monstrous things. All boys are, of course. It is part and parcel to boyhood, that... that potential, seemingly without bounds. All paths spread out before the young, winding and ducking and curving, often swaying back and forth like wheatgrass in the wind. There are paths for heroes and villains and those in between. Those, like ponderous Eik, too enamored with the paths to choose a single one. There is something more to the one who stands before him, though.
Maybe it is just the slender, veinlike fractures of gold that reach across his shoulders, and the way they speak (like the sandstone walls around them, like stone) of weight and heat and time. Maybe it is in the look in his eyes, as it meets Eik's.
(So? have you done the devil's work too too?)
The moonlight watches on.
"I was on my way to the plains," he says. Eik reacts with the swivel of an ear. "Is this not North?"
Briefly, he thinks of the time before directions. It was a place before Novus. A simpler place. There was the impassable mountain range where the sun rose, the grizzled forest where the sun set, and the sea on all other sides. You moved in reference to some landmark, or by the stars if it was a clear night (it often wasn't) and that was all you needed to know. His mind still works in that way-- the cardinal directions are not intuitive to him the way landmarks are. He had only ever learned them so in court he would not seem like such a bumpkin. He was never ashamed of his otherness, but it seemed appropriate to cover it while representing Solterra.
It feels, now, like a different life entirely. A different man, dressed in his skin, going through motions until they became familiar.
"No, its not." If circumstances were different, Eik might have smiled in understanding. It was easy to get turned around in the labyrinth of the canyons, especially as a foreigner, especially at night. Sometimes people got lost and were never found again. Taken by a predator, most likely, or else lost to the earth. In some places the stone floor suddenly dropped into crevices so deep so deep and sprawling that you could not peer to the bottom of them. They always haunted Eik, those impenetrable caverns. All unknowable things did.
Anyway. He does not smile in understanding. His voice is dry and rough-- Solterran. Times being what they are, trust is no longer a thing that can be given so easily. Especially here, where it would be so easy for an accident to happen... here, where one misplaced step could leave you with a broken ankle and no one else around for miles.
The solitude is what drew Eik to this place-- he wanted to be lost. To be unfound. He did not come here to die.
When the shadow passes, Eik leans into the rock at his side in attempt to flatten his profile (it is rather pathetic to witness, a grown horse trying to disappear into a rock wall). "Teryr," the word leaves him in a force of hot air, an uneasy hiss that conveys far more than five meager letters could, if left to their own devices. His voice lowers, although the beasts hunt primarily by smell and sight, not sound. There was no such thing as too much caution. "They usually hunt at dawn and dusk. That one must be hungry." Hungry and desperate. Like most of Solterra right now. His lip curls in distaste. It might be back, it might not.
"We should move."
E I K
grief can be a kind of music
that knows how to rise like the sea
Maybe it is just the slender, veinlike fractures of gold that reach across his shoulders, and the way they speak (like the sandstone walls around them, like stone) of weight and heat and time. Maybe it is in the look in his eyes, as it meets Eik's.
(So? have you done the devil's work too too?)
The moonlight watches on.
"I was on my way to the plains," he says. Eik reacts with the swivel of an ear. "Is this not North?"
Briefly, he thinks of the time before directions. It was a place before Novus. A simpler place. There was the impassable mountain range where the sun rose, the grizzled forest where the sun set, and the sea on all other sides. You moved in reference to some landmark, or by the stars if it was a clear night (it often wasn't) and that was all you needed to know. His mind still works in that way-- the cardinal directions are not intuitive to him the way landmarks are. He had only ever learned them so in court he would not seem like such a bumpkin. He was never ashamed of his otherness, but it seemed appropriate to cover it while representing Solterra.
It feels, now, like a different life entirely. A different man, dressed in his skin, going through motions until they became familiar.
"No, its not." If circumstances were different, Eik might have smiled in understanding. It was easy to get turned around in the labyrinth of the canyons, especially as a foreigner, especially at night. Sometimes people got lost and were never found again. Taken by a predator, most likely, or else lost to the earth. In some places the stone floor suddenly dropped into crevices so deep so deep and sprawling that you could not peer to the bottom of them. They always haunted Eik, those impenetrable caverns. All unknowable things did.
Anyway. He does not smile in understanding. His voice is dry and rough-- Solterran. Times being what they are, trust is no longer a thing that can be given so easily. Especially here, where it would be so easy for an accident to happen... here, where one misplaced step could leave you with a broken ankle and no one else around for miles.
The solitude is what drew Eik to this place-- he wanted to be lost. To be unfound. He did not come here to die.
When the shadow passes, Eik leans into the rock at his side in attempt to flatten his profile (it is rather pathetic to witness, a grown horse trying to disappear into a rock wall). "Teryr," the word leaves him in a force of hot air, an uneasy hiss that conveys far more than five meager letters could, if left to their own devices. His voice lowers, although the beasts hunt primarily by smell and sight, not sound. There was no such thing as too much caution. "They usually hunt at dawn and dusk. That one must be hungry." Hungry and desperate. Like most of Solterra right now. His lip curls in distaste. It might be back, it might not.
"We should move."
grief can be a kind of music
that knows how to rise like the sea
@Erasmus bloop
Time makes fools of us all
