[EVENT] Each One a Treasure

[Eik]

Seraphina is dead.

Even though he's repeated the words countless times, they don't make sense.

Isra is missing.

Rumor was that she hadn't returned after the kidnapping, after they parted ways.

Rhoswen is...

No. That was a wound too fresh to be poking at.


He didn't have time to be here, but he was. It had been weeks and Eik had yet to see Solterra's new king, let alone get close enough to kill him. Every moment spent away from the capital was a moment wasted, an opportunity lost. But he was getting worn thin. Held up to the light you could practically see through him. Here- the outline of his skeleton, back bent beneath a heavy weight unseen. There- the dark stain of his heart, and the network of veins spreading from it like black rivers.

He tried, and tried but it was a losing fight. It was not a fight at all.

Eik came to the Steppe because sometimes you needed something-- someone-- to punch.

Or maybe he came because he was drawn here. He believes himself a free man, outside the strings of fate that bind some people to a path they did not choose. But sometimes, times like these when he's weary and everything, inside and out, is coated with a layer of dust, sometimes he wonders if there isn't some sadistic puppet master pulling his strings, dragging him away from the object of his intent, across the desert and mountains, to the flat, ugly expanse of the Bellum Steppe.

Maybe it's the magic that leads him.

The magic in him has been growing steadily ever since it has taken root. He recognizes the excitement in it as he approaches the Steppe. It starts as a low buzz, nearly imperceptible, and when the wind changes to blow toward him the intensity increases. (still, even focused as he is, somewhere a voice whispers, again and again Seraphina is dead / Isra is missing / Rhoswen is...)

He stops at the edge of the wildflowers, struck not by their beauty but their wrongness. A sense of dread mounts in his chest (Seraphina is dead / Isra is missing / Rhoswen is...who are you?" he asks, again and again. The song of the wind begins to sound like laughter.

-     -     -
There is no better way to know us
E I K
than as two wolves, come separately to a wood

***STAFF EDIT
@Eik has rolled a 3! Perhaps he has decided to pick a flower to take home with him; however, bad luck will dog his heels for the next 1 RL month (half an IC season). You can decide what the details of his bad luck entail, pm @nestle or @sid if you want ideas!