Hoarse, booming drums of the regiment,
Little souls who thirst for fight,
These men were born to drill and die.
The unexplained glory flies above them,
It is surreal to be in Solterra's citadel. It is not as he remembers it.
Nothing, it seems, is as he remembers it. Oh, they've tried to explain. They've tried to tell him of the end of Zolin's reign, and Maxence, Seraphina, Raum, Orestes. A list of names that mean very little to him. They've tried to say, you were hidden for ten years and he wonders why it is no one questioned when the screaming sands stopped, and Zolin's reign of torture beneath the citadel within the catacomb crypt had gone unanswered. Of course, someone said, the child soldier's happened after your disappearance, and they go on to describe the fates of orphans, and the lost, and abandoned--
And Zayir's thoughts derail, as they are wont to do lately. Since his emergence. Since daylight spilled across his face like a christening, a rebirth.
As he was thinking, before:
Nothing is as he remembers it.
The palace is polished for the occasion. Noblemen and commoners alike have been invited, and Zayir is astonished to see a gypsy caravan within the great hall of the keep. The marble floors are immaculate, and upon the great room's dais rests a number of lively musicians. They are playing something Zayir does not recognise, and even the music sounds strange.
It feels, almost, as if he is looking at everything from underwater. It is familiar, but strange, nearly unrecognisable. This is not the same citadel he had known, and grown up in, with Lady Marcisa Arisetta in her flowing gowns and King Havieel a stern presence about the halls; no, the current Sovereign is much flashier than that, and a foreigner in addition.
Not of a land like Leisha, no, a sister to Solterra. No, from the sea. Or so they say.
Zayir is offered champagne by a servant and he denies, further surprised to be reminded they are paid employees and no longer slaves. Very few wear collars to express their station in life. He eventually wanders through the dancing, and the bright lamplights and floating lanterns and noise, noise, noise like a river rushing over him--yes, Zayir eventually wanders to a quiet garden, just past the festivities, where for a moment he tries to see the stars. He does not remember how long it has been since he has seen the stars.
But the night is cloudy. The stars are sleeping.
His ears continue to ring with the music. He tugs his cloak tighter about his shoulders, and tries to steel his nerves. He had thought--and Zayir knows it was a foolish thought--he might have recognised someone. An old friend, perhaps. But there is no one at the party he knows.
Zayir thinks he should feel shock, or confusion. Perhaps even anger. Instead, with a guitar and voices rising out behind him, he feels empty. Empty like a dry well. Empty like a dead thing, like carrion torn up for all it was worth. When he turns abruptly to go inside, with a speed and intensity characteristic for him, Zayir was not anticipating another horse to be entering the garden. As he turns he collides sharply with another horse. It knocks the golden laurel at his brow askew, and dislodges his cloak from about his shoulders. Zayir reels backward.
"My apologies." He says curtly, and avoids, momentarily, eye contact.
If they do not know him by face they may know him by reputation, and that is something Zayir is not ready to converse about. Aren't you one of the soldiers from the catacombs?
"Speaks" || @Anyone!
great is the battle-god, great, and his kingdom:
a field where a thousand corpses lie
