You asked about the day Taisce arrived in Novus. Well, I cannot tell you of that day, for he has always been here. What I will tell you though, is of the day he returned to Solterra and to do that, I must begin at the start.
Taisce, you see was born a boy, like any other. He was born in sand that did not know the touch of water. In the midst of the dust and heat of the desert he was pushed into the world and, no sooner there, he was plucked from his mother’s side.
The child, born in the colours of a sea he had never known, was stolen away to become a part of a new project the once-king of Solterra had planned. As part of that masterpiece, the boy was whipped and poisoned, taken near to death and brought back again. They beat him into submission, manipulated his thoughts, his mind, his love, until all he knew of love was the name a soldier told him was his, Taisce. He was called so because that is what his mother cried as he was taken away and she lay dying, a spear in her breast.
So Taisce spent years with the child soldiers, he fought and offered his life for Solterra over and over. He was a snake in the sands of Solterra’s desert and he fought like one. But his skin was the colour of the sea. So they called him the Seasnake. He would hiss and bite, snarl and savage his enemies – he was as wild a soldier as the other children that made up the rest of his faction.
But one day, the day he discovered the ocean, well, that was the day it claimed what was its own. With his skin the colour of water and sand combined, maybe it was fate that decreed he was made to paint beaches red, not deserts. So the sea sent a kelpie to claim this child soldier, and it did, in a battle that raged.
Taisce drowned a boy soldier and emerged from the deep as a kelpie; the body of his maker broken at his hooves. That was the first kill he made as a kelpie, but one of many he had made as a soldier.
So it brings me to this day, the day he reclaimed his name, Taisce. The day the wild sea rolled into Solterra and from its waves he leapt upon the rugged sand. Ah, there was nothing beautiful about Solterra’s beaches, nothing significant about the place he died. His pearlescent eyes swept over it, dismissive. The broken kelpie was gone, eaten by predators and time.
With the waters roaring and hissing at their creation, Taisce washed like the tide along the beach. He leaves no footprints in the sand, for the sea chases him, helps him, swallowing any evidence that he was there.
The kelpie stops at an alcove and there tat beautiful monster of the sea began to sing. It was a song he once sang before the beatings at the hand of his commander stole his love, his fear.
At sea his brethren watch, the hair of the Comhar herd glinting a myriad of unnatural hues upon the breakers. They listened as their brother sang for the child soldiers, to remind them of the nights they sat and sang together, until each lost their voice, their soul, their bodies to Solterra’s war effort.
That haunting song poured rich as wine, and achingly beautiful. It was specter soft and designed to pull, to lure. Taisce waits, adorned in the blue of the sea, the gold of the sand – he is their marbled testament. Was Solis watching his prodigal son that day? For bright sunlight flashed along the beaten, rusting collar of his servitude. Taisce heeded it not as he watched the beach with white sea-spray eyes and his lungs drank the hot Solterran air.
That, my dear friend, was the day Taisce returned to Solterra.
It had been far too long since Makeda last danced the desert dunes without a horde of Davke at her side. They never seemed to share the same emphatic touch in their step that she had and it often left her mood in a sour state, but today she refused to be brought down by her beloved buzzkill family. The girl left them to their devices for the day, instead opting to flounce through the sand in pursuit of excitement.
Unfortunately for her, however, Solis had not planned any excitement for his scorpion daughter... at least, none that she was made aware of yet. Thus, she was left to aimlessly wander, not yet ready to return to the Davke's haunt yet bored out of her mind. Gazini trailed not far behind his bonded, tagging along sluggishly as she led the way towards the sea. This was often how their exploits went: Makeda carving an unknown path while the dragon merely followed along until he was needed. The reptilian beast presumed this day would be nothing but walking, though the sight of Makeda slowing down up ahead finally pulled him from his lazy trance. Something had intrigued her.
From the beach there came the song of a stranger, but the words of his ballad sounded almost familiar. She had heard before, its tune was something the girl recognized from the past... and ah! It eventually lit up in her memory, briefly returning her to her years as young girl living alone in the Mors. She recalled it to be one of the many songs of Solterra's infamous child soldiers; Makeda knew a number of them, if only because she once made a habit of following them. She would watch from afar, only straying closer when commanders had fallen asleep.
To hear such a song here, out on the shores of the sea, was more than peculiar. It pulled her closer, close enough to note the lone figure that stood in the shallows - and much like the verses that fell from his lips, he too struck a chord in her mind. "You," she finally called, "what are you doing out there?" Familiar or not, Makeda was approaching a man standing out at sea singing to no one but himself.
If anything, she'd found her entertainment for the day...
Taisce watched you approach, with your sable skin painted like sweeping dunes. You were satin, gleaming gold and red and simple brown. Taisce thought you wore so many colours; the soul of the earth imprinted across your slender frame.
Taisce is so very far from your earthen hues. He succumbed to the ocean so long ago now.
Still he watched you, everywhere from the glittering gold of the delicate jewelry hanging from your nose and dancing across your cheek, to the khol lines that followed the sharp angle of your cheeks and gathered together into a ‘v’. You wore the earth (its paint, its metal, its gems), like he wore the sea. Each of you were wild that day, each of you were catastrophic in your boredom.
Together you were the wrath of the ocean and the desert set to consume it.
He sang to you, unwavering, haunting and beautiful, but you had already heard him hadn’t you? Already that song, rising and falling like the swell of the sea, had pulled you in as gently, as slyly as the tide pulling you out to sea. It was familiar, a warm memory slipping beneath your skin begging to be remembered.
So he waited for you, like a spider for its fly. His web is gossamer gold and it stretches, fine and gleaming, in marble art across his skin.
Though Taisce stood quite still, did you see how his skin rippled, Makeda? It was a testament to the waters that lapped at his cloven feet.
For every step you took to him, your dragon was awakening. Already it watched him with orange-blue eyes (so many eyes!), that were so alert. Your dragon knew, even then. But still you stepped closer still and still he remained silent.
That kelpie boy enjoyed the ease with which you came to him, with your scorpion neck so proudly arched. You were a prize of the desert and he knew the davke oh so well. His eyes curled and twisted up your spiral horns and his pearl eyes glimmered. We will never know if it was recognition that flared then.
His collar gleamed beneath Solis’ gaze, it was turning grubby black and red with rust, but it was silver enough to still look fierce and fettering. Its story was one of blood and it was as potent as the canid teeth that lay hidden beneath his golden lips.
Ears, long as champagne flutes, and just as elegant, tipped to catch your words. Shells fell from his body as he moved. They landed in the sand with a ripple of chimes like spilled gold. Taisce’s steel-blue skin twitched and he smiled, a wine rich smile for you, the slender girl upon her beach, her watchful serpent curling about her limbs.
Taisce moved again and the desert wondered where his spear had gone. But waves crash into rocks as seafoam sprayed across his skin; it darkened him with sin. The kelpie looks to the painted girl and speaks, at last. “Waiting.” He muses slowly.
He ascends to you, over slippery rocks that cannot trip him. His skin dripped eternally and his sea-storm mane and tail hung as a waterfall may. When he moved close to you, and he moved very close indeed, you might have been able to scent the salt upon his skin, the breeze of the ocean roaring out at sea.
He looked to your lavender eyes and then away over your desert skin, over your limbs as fine and long and dangerous as the spears he once threw. Taisce tasted the air, they way you made it smell of smoke and spices. Your skin was dry, but it helped him remember, and that is why he lingered close, close, close. That is why he circled you and then came to rest before you.
He was the tide and he would pull you out to sea.
“Calling old friends.” Taisce said to you, in a voice that sings from the ocean deep.
She recognized the rusted collar that clung to his throat, the way it gleaned dully in Solis' light as he drew closer. This was a boy that once belonged to Solterra's horde of child soldiers, a crew that she had followed curiously every now and then as they trekked the Mors and its endless sands. Makeda was still but a young girl herself then, but she could recall the hushed friendships that were formed in those times. Their glorified babysitters would fall asleep, and in swooped the budding Davke child, ready to bury her nose where it did not belong.
Perhaps it was no surprise, then, that she did not back off when Taisce encroached upon her personal space. She was notorious for her boldness, a trait that sometimes invited trouble to her door... but it was not often that Makeda shied from danger and today was no different. In fact, she welcomed his closeness, taking a step of her own to further close what gap lay between them. He spoke while she did so, making mention of old friends; they clicked with her, leading a sharp brow to quirk ever so slightly. The familiarity that flooded her mind washed over it a second time, providing her the memories of child soldiers she once knew. Taisce, she recalled his name, but there was something different about him. His skin remained like a reflection of the sea, though he almost seemed to suit it more- and the delicate fins that adorned him now, those were different.
In spite of the oddities, Makeda maintained her air of confidence. "It appears you've contracted a disease," she noted the fins aloud, flashing her violet gaze to them briefly, "I would consider getting those looked at." The scorpion knew not of where they came from, but sarcasm was a gift naturally bestowed upon her and she was happy to dole it out to a friend of old - regardless of whether or not they remained friends.
Gazini, of course, knew better. He wound his way closer to them, uttering a guttural hiss of protest to their closeness. He cared not if she knew him from her younger days; there was something off about this sea-singing wanderer and he did not hesitate to make his distaste for him known. Unfortunately for the serpentine dragon, Makeda remained firm in where she stood. "Ease your worries, Gazini, I presume Taisce here isn't foolish enough to lay a hoof on me." A sultry smirk befell her pale lips- an invite, a dare for him to strike if such a desire rested within his warrior's soul.
