is this a natural feeling or is it just me bleeding?
His own childhood was mostly fine to get into, as much as he might have a few hangups over it now. Nothing that was much of a secret in a place like the Bheo, and therefore Lasairian could talk about it without being upset. At least in theory, since he really hadn't tested talking it all out with someone new before. He couldn't be perfectly sure as to how he might feel about it once it was said. Still, he knew that if it became that sort of issue, the conversation could be quickly dropped. Truly, though, Lasairian didn't think there was much to worry over.
He did not have to discuss Caydren at length, did not have to get in too deeply on anything that might be a sore spot. It might be good for him to talk about a number of other things, however, and so if those came up, he didn't mind glossing over some details and being a little vague just to get the general idea of it all out there. That was, if Bel was any sort of curious on any of that. For now, though, Lasairian felt at ease discussing most of this stuff, and he probably looked as relaxed as he felt. Aside from being concerned over Bel, of course.
Discussing the land and Novus itself was easy enough, though even Lasairian still felt new to it all, new here, he had been keeping busy and trying to learn a good deal about his new home. Because that was what it was now, no way to deny it. A new home. A place where he had settled into and felt right in. At least for the most part. He was still astounded at how well everything seemed to fit, at all the strange ways it felt right to be here, despite the loss of magic and true forms. Lasairian had trouble deciding what form that was, exactly, but had an inkling it wasn't the solid one.
There was nothing but solid flesh and bone to this form, though. No way to float around like before, though Lasairian couldn't say it upset him much. He had barely used that form before, after all. No reason to do so, and it just tended to show that he wasn't the same as they were, the others of his kind. Just a little bit too different, though it was a kindness that through most of his childhood, they did not treat him too overly different. It was only as he grew up enough to want to prove himself that he realized how difficult doing that would actually be.
And it was never enough. It never could be, because effort meant nothing when he was held back simply for what he had been born as. A hybrid, though he obviously looked more like all the others rather than show the less liked side. Lasairian was more like his mother's people, but that wasn't enough. Any little flaw had become a blinding thing among the others, and while he did his best to rise above it, he knew what his limits would always be. It only made him try harder. But here? Here in Novus, there was a chance to matter for those efforts, and that made all the difference.
Lasairian did not want to dwell on it all, because there was no reason to do so. That was in the past and it could stay there. Plus, Bel was saying things that he couldn't help but grin over, amused that she thought she might end up on the wrong 'seabed', but thinking that it would be hard just to land there, since this place seemed quite friendly even across kingdoms. So far, anyway. Lasairian had visited the night court and found them nice enough to even outsiders. He'd quite liked the marketplace, and the reminder of it, though.
More words from Bel and Lasairian laughed gently, "why look for another one if you've already found me?" he asked with a grin, "though I doubt I would feel so inclined to feed you to any kraken, no matter how many questions you ask. After all, I'm always asking questions, so I fully understand," he added lightly, finding it nice to be able to banter like this with someone. So far, there had been many more somber equines met here than ones that were those that he could have a conversation like this with. It made a difference to how Lasairian saw things, too.
When she commented about magic, Lasairian nodded, "yes, like that. Can't say I really used telepathy back then, but there was magic ways to heal, and shifting, portals, dreamwalking, empaths, and all sorts of things. I couldn't do all of those, but I knew others that could. I do miss that part. Being able to do neat things with magic," were his words on that. Lasairian understood where telepathy came in very handy here, why they could be as far as they were with it, and the fact that they would be less so without it. Still, Lasairian yearned for more. He couldn't help it.
When another question was posed, he looked thoughtful about it. What was it like learning magic? How did he begin to explain it? That took a moment, but he just went with it, "it's eye opening and freeing in a way. It opens up so many new things, new doors in life. You can see things that you couldn't before, and there are less impossible things when there's magic. Easier to get to far away places if you have a mirror-portal handy, too," he responded with a far-away smile. Enjoyed perks of another life, but now that was a shut door to him. Though it might not always be.
Getting into the discussion of not having always been in this form, that he had been born in another one, well, that felt a little complex to get into, but Lasairian didn't mind attempting to do so. There was no reason to hide what he had once been after all. He felt no shame in it, just that deep sadness and hurt over the injustice of what was limited because of that hybrid status he'd held there. All of it put together and laid out in words to someone made it seem more complex than that, and in some ways it was, but it was enough to simply give that much of it to make the point.
The thought that Bel was thinking 'frog' and 'tadpole' for how he had changed forms had Lasairian grinning with abundant mirth over the mental image, but he shook his head at that, "no, not quite like that. I did not evolve into this form, I merely ended up with a change in form altogether. The form I was born as wasn't solid, exactly. It was just energy that looked like a smoky shadow. Like the billowing white kind after putting out a fire. With glowy eyes. The others were black smoke and shadow, though. I was just a heavily leaning halfbreed," he explained lightly.
Of course that wasn't all there was to it, but it was the form he was born as, so it made sense to start there and go on. "That was just the form I was born as, and I'm not even going to try explaining that part of it. But eventually we get a more solid form, too. Bipedal, soft, strange compared to these forms. Then there's one more made for fighting, and it's varied from one person to another. Mine resembled a sharp toothed, bipedal lizard," he added. Quite a difference, going to this after having a raptor form and all the rest. But Lasairian was at peace with it.
Having a form like that when it came to sparring had been nice, though. Which would make it rather difficult to have to learn how to fight in this form if ever it came to that. So many differences, and Lasairian would have to change so much on how he thought a battle out, and learn new tactics, forget old ones that could only complicate and confuse him to try here. It would certainly mess with his gut instincts on the matter, and sounded all around messy in all honesty. Lasairian did not need all of that here, he could be good with simply being a healer and living that kind of life.
The subject of sparring being a thing and what Bel said of it made Lasairian nod his head, "considering the dangers of wounds and the lack of magic underwater, it's probably not a great idea to spar too much, I'd think. We had healing magic to help keep things from being lethal. Though we also had a very strict no killing rule." That part needed no further explaining, he didn't think. But the rarity of children among the species made the deaths a more concerning thing, and too many accidents couldn't really be afforded because of that.
The shared raising of children, however, was most certainly something both of them shared in their childhoods. "It was the same for us. We were often raised by several adults. Guess they couldn't be too careful with how few of us were around at any given time." The internal musing of all that didn't stop there, though Lasairian didn't feel like it was a good idea to talk about how close knit most of that group's adults were with one another, nor how blurred some lines got in a community like that. There was still some discomfort in all of that.
One did not tell someone they just met that they had secretly fallen in love with one of those adults, and did not speak on the fact that said adult had slept with both actual parents, and did not comment on said adult being more or less a community bicycle (their words, not Lasairian's). It did make Lasairian's choice to remain a virgin throughout his life a hell of a lot easier, though. Best to just not touch any of that insanity, no matter what foolish spin his heart and emotions were on. Helped that Lasairian had left all of that behind, too. No going back to that emotional type of hell.
Onto the topic of war, as grim as it all was, and Bel was telling him that her people were too busy fleeing predators to worry about fighting each other. Lasairian had to wonder which would be worse, but he certainly wasn't going to speak of such things. It was nice to hear her take on war and how all life was precious, and he had to nod to that. The rules of the Bheo were the same, though there would always be extreme situations, and a leader could still call for war. Yet the last war wasn't begun with a clear head; he knew that much. And as such, it should never have happened like that.
Lasairian hadn't been born at that time, though, and didn't face more than the years after, when there was still much to mourn and rebuilding to do. So when Bel apologized over if the topic was sensitive, Lasairian shook his head, "it's fine. I was born after the war, so I didn't know things to be any other way." That was that as far as he was concerned. He knew that things had changed, but he didn't feel the true depths of those changes for himself. All he had of the before was secondhand stories. He felt bad for the pain of his people over it, but he couldn't feel the sting of it like they could.
Nor could he grasp the pain of the losses that Bel had suffered, hearing not only about the sister but the lost mother, too. Bel leaving the pod after what happened to her sister must have been another difficult loss for the pod after so much already, but Lasairian could understand why Bel had felt the need to go her own way after such trauma. Lasairian did not have any younger siblings, but he did have an older brother. They had been close as children, but Seoras left the Bheo much sooner than Lasairian had. Perhaps it was the mixed genetics that made them more prone to wandering.
Lasairian didn't know what more to say about those losses, and didn't feel like it was his place to bother with it anyway. Instead, he was attentive more keenly to her speaking about what it was like under the water, on how it was like a different world. In a way it was, though. There had to be so many different things under the surface from what it was like on land. So Lasairian nods, interested, and continues to listen. He's silent and thoughtful on the last bit said about it, about the land and if it's like that. He believed that there were such places, yes. But he doesn't know how it adds up to what she's seen underwater. "I might not know what it's like down there, but I believe those places do exist up here, too," he said gently, smiling at her.
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