[P] I'd rather sing one wild song

[Renwick]

❖
Night guide you, lad — past those sorrow fields & sombre marshes  to a kinder end.

R

enwick will be the first to say Denocte is the realm of the lovers and the dreamers, before he admits with a wry smile that is also the home of thieves and bards. It's the only place you can go hear romantics in the air, those gallant knights in their lordly steel — beguiling maids and their emerald eyes. Of quiet lovers in shadowed corners, their bodies aglow in lantern light. Of dreamers whose hooves create heart stopping music on old stones, whose silks fly around them in wondrous blurs of technicolour.

He remembers when he was younger, before he called himself to arms, to duty — to war. How he scraped his knees on these very same streets, deaf to minders who hurried after him. Frantic that they would be held accountable for Renwick's rogue heart and impulsive whims. Running until he was breathless, underhoof and in the way. Listening and listening and listening, until his ears were ringing and his heart full.

Walking down these streets now, inspires a similar sort of fervor. But he's older now, and the youthful winds of naivete and innocence have long left his sails. He walks the streets with different intentions now, different worries nipping at his heels, different senses in need of sating. Funnily enough, he'd say, the desire to get lost is still there. To run, and run, and run.

"So I am, lad." He says, coming to a slow stop. The smile on his face bright enough to match the burning intensity of his molten eyes. The fool and trickster both, trapped in a noble suit of armour. The boy remains him on the night, with the candle wax upon his back, an artists rendition of the moon coming undone. Her tears trapped within hoof and horn.

Certainly eye-catching, within a land filled with endless one of a kinds.

Why did you choose to be that.

That gives him pause. Perhaps if he was another man, he might launch into a heartfelt speech of defending his people. How proud and noble it is to give your life in service to a King, or Queen, or Court. To serve a higher purpose that exists beyond you, and will exist long after your bones return to the loam. Renwick isn't a novice wordsmith by far, his bouts in tourneys and long nights huddled by the roadside campfires give you both an audiance and time to perfect the craft.

So why do it then.

Though the other part of him — crafted in dionysian design — reasons the boy is just that, young enough to not know turbulances. He needs no syrup thick propoganda he never intended to impart, nor the world weary regrets of a soldier whose seen too much. This is not a night for that.

"I wanted to see the World." A white lie delivered with a rovers grin, he meanders closer, and closer still. Until his haunches rests against well-worn wood, props his foot as he often does, and gets comfortable. "Our world is such a big and beautiful place, and I thought I'd like to see it, in all it's beauty. All the pretty maids and handsome lords and roguish raffians. Rather than becoming a pot bellied dandy in my father's unfortunately gaudy manse." The image alone is enough to provoke a theatrical reaction across his sharp features, curling in on themselves in a desperate attempt to shield from the mental image. "Our people are beautiful too, and our heritage is rich and storied. But you never hear so much of those other places, save for what they think of us. So I wanted to witness them in their turns, see how they measured up."

The Brotherhood had been different that the regular Denoctian conscription, a legend in their own right. Of dashing knights and their roc companions, dark as ink and wine dark seas. Their star studded banners aloft in winter breezes, guarding fiercely the mountain passes and the old gate. Their faces prominent beloved cornerstones at tourneys and taverns alike.  Only in times of great strife did they march fast and fearsome. Zolin's war had ruined their last great weyrs, struck down their mighty birds to rot in the sands, carrion for scavengers. They had dragged their dead home, and Renwick faced an uncertain future leading what was left. Recovery had been a slow thing, and he dared not push it in the after years. Concerned that life would simply swallow them up into the history books, no more than a mournful reminder of a bygone era.

Let them exist, and let them be enough.

"I wanted to be more, and so I am." He ends with a wink. "Why," tilting his head to spy the wares upon the table with a passing fancy. "Fancy taking up arms and seeing the World?"

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