From half-sleep somewhere in the maze of the canyon walls, he awakens. Perhaps it was a sound or color or electricity that woke him. Perhaps it was a scream- but in his memory, the scream would come second to waking. He does not move until the sound stops. Even then, he is motionless for a moment. He does not know what madness he is about to get himself into, he does not know if he wants to get himself into it. But then he is moving, navigating around the walls of the canyon to where he heard the scream abruptly stop. From that direction he hears the sound of water dancing. It encourages him that he goes in the right direction.
A gentle voice rises above the sound of splashing, but it is quickly gone again. The canyon walls twist the way sounds travel-- you could almost believe the voice was the water itself. The lull of the goddess. But he shrugs aside the thought for another day-- he's moving and tells himself we have no time for fantastical things.
(Little do we know we move toward the fantastical, and a hundred ideas we thought beyond us, beyond nature. How grandiose we think ourselves, how big our minds are! Yet how much is beyond us!
But we digress- all the world's a stage, is it not? We unwittingly seek our entrance.)
Maxence flies overhead, reaffirms Eik's direction is true, and it is just another few turns before he is among them.
His attention is immediately and raptly drawn to the bedraggled woman in gold. Her expression almost stops him in his tracks. A world of his own pain instantly and cruelly descends-- he knows the look on her face, and his heart breaks for her the way it could never break for himself. If it were just the two of them he would react differently, but Maxence has a good grip on the situation and the striped woman, well, seems a thousand times more comforting than the scarred, grizzled warrior would be to a stranger.
So he steps forward, head low in greeting to all three but eyes on the fallen one. He has shaken off the pain once again, and while the sharpness is gone the ache is still there. Particularly when looking at her. He nickers softly- in encouragement, in agreement, and in welcome. A sorry welcome.
Only trust the story.
- E I K
smh he's USELESS I'm so sorry @Ranjiri @Eden @Maxence
