It seems a lifetime ago when the Solterran sun first hit his back. That dry, generous heat caused him to feel something like infatuation for the first time in as long as he could remember. Eik was born in a tundra-like climate, as dry and harsh as the desert but with temperatures on the other end of the scale. So he chose Solterra as his home because it seemed the obvious choice for a man who so craved the sun on his skin.
Suffice to say, the honeymoon phase did not last his first summer here.
This second summer does not feel as long as the first, but it is just as brutal. All the desert longs for the end of the season A hushed anticipation swells in the hallways of the court as the shadows begin to grow long. Overhead, the sky battles with itself in violent collisions of red and orange and purple. A warm breeze picks up, and it noticeably grows cooler as the day settles into dusk. The evening provides sweet reprieve from the sweltering hammer of day, and because of it Eik is in a good mood- which is something of a rarity these days. When the emissary can be found in the court, he is most often wandering with a brooding, faraway look in his dark eyes. But this evening there's some kind of spark in him, and as he walks he looks around, even making eye contact with his fellow citizens. Most have no idea who he is- and he likes it this way, privacy suits him. He would never be able to handle the recognition that Seraphina does.
Eik stops when he sees Jaxis, a single ear flicking back then forward again. She looks like trouble.
"Good evening." He says with a simple nod of his head. Against his best judgement, he does not keep walking. "How are you?" The words almost crack in his throat, he cannot remember the last time he attempted small talk.
- - - There is no better way to know us
E I K than as two wolves, come separately to a wood
@Jaxis whelp been meaning to write this for a while now! blah first posts suck
She longed for the bruises to bloom under her skin, the itch of a fight curling in her gut. Jaxis was a fighter like her father, but seemed to crave it far more than he did. She wanted to see what she could do, she wanted to learn more. When she was younger, he had managed to get her in to the dirt more times than she could count, and every time, she would get back up and charge at him.
She had learned, though she had not learned everything he could teacher her. Jaxis wanted to learn more, to be able to split a nation with simply a few choice words from her tongue and a way to worm in to them.
As someone spoke, her ears flicked and her head lifted, looking very much like her father's daughter, her horns a dead giveaway as she blinked those violet eyes. "Hello," she spoke, and felt a flicker of subtle amusement as she wracked her brain, attempting to identify the man. Torstein had taught her a lot, and she finally came up with a name to match his description; Eik. Emissary.
It was time to play nice, instead of vindictive.
"Enjoying the coolness of the breeze. I assume I'm not the only one?" After all, he looked to be in a rather chipper mood.
It did not take him very long in Solterra to learn that words can wound as well as weapons. This is one thing Eik never imagined before Novus- that you could wage a war with your tongue just as easily as with a blade. Easier, even. So despite Jaxis' youth he does not discredit the danger she might posses. It seems most everyone here is a fighter, in some way or another. Part of his respectful caution might also be that she is already near his height and growing-- and he knows of her father, if only in passing, and the venerable talent and sheer heft of the man.
Eik, for all his scars, is at once a tired and restless man. He feels as though there's no fight in him anymore, and he misses that spark. He isn't really sure who he is without it. In Jaxis he sees infinite possibilities. He almost remembers what it was like to be a child with the future looming before you with all its uncertainty and all its promise.
" Enjoying the coolness of the breeze. I assume I'm not the only one?"
Oh, he will never not enjoy a cool breeze here. Eik is marked by the desert now but some part of him will always be man of snow and tundra, infinite blue-grey-white. "Always." It has been so shockingly different here that he has a hard time even remembering what it felt like to be so cold your bones hurt. Looking at the impossibly young woman before him, it makes him wonder with amusement: "Do you know what it is to be cold?" He tries not to look or sound mocking nor smug, but a sly half-smile curls at the edge of his lips. And then, curiosity driving the conversation on (also the knowing that the more he asks, the less he must answer), he asks another question, barely leaving the poor girl enough time to answer the first. "What does a kid do around here, anyway?" Learning to read and write, he would assume, what else after that is beyond him.
- - - There is no better way to know us
E I K than as two wolves, come separately to a wood
Tilting her head, Jaxis pushed her ears forward to listen to the Emissary, blinking once or twice. She had barely had the time to process the first question and come up with an answer before he was tossing another one at her, and her head shook just a little before she settled on her hooves once more. She processed that one too, and her lips spread in to a small smile.
"To answer the first... no. I've only known the heat here. Denocte, too, was warm." Though Solterra was a heat that was something far too much for most. Here, the furnace winds had shaped her, formed her, and she had grown in to it. Shifting herself, she turned her head toward Eik. "Learn to fight. I've been taught a lot, and there's more to learn." She was sure that there was. Her father knew a lot, and there were others that knew how to fight as well.
"Aren't you the Emissary? What do you do?" She was more curious than anything, not willing to stick sharp barbs in her words with someone in the regime. That, and she wanted to know. The more she learned, the more she would have in her knowledge for things in the future.
"I would recommend a winter trek to veneror," Eik says simply, without further explanation. It does not seem possible to him to grow up right if you have never experienced discomfort.
She speaks of fighting and he nods absent-mindedly. Good. So long as she's learning right- and no doubt she is, if her father is involved. "How good do you think you are? I would like to see, sometime. Soon." With the relative absence of their champion of battle and the constant possibility of another Davke attack, Eik has taken a renewed (if reluctant) interest in the Solterran army.
How strange, it was not so long ago when children were forbidden in Solterra-- a decision he disagreed with, but what could he do back then? In those days he did not even know how to move things with his mind. Now, his constant practice with pen and ink have developed a dexterity he did not know existed. "Are you learning to read and write as well?" He knows that among Seraphina's many goals for the nation, literacy is one of the highest priorities. Eik knows the empowerment of the written word, and he is hopeful for the escape it may provide for the youths who do not wish to fight, to kill, to die too young.
She turns the topic to himself and he nods. "Yes. I'm Eik," He introduces himself with a dismissive shrug and moves on to her question. "I travel often to the other courts and the common lands. I act as an envoy and represent our court and sovereign, and I report my observations to the regime. I also offer myself as a consult to my court and queen." It is a straightforward, if a bit bland, description of his duties. The truth is that Eik mostly just wanders around, but he doesn't particularly feel like sharing this with the young mare before him. "What's your name?"
- - - There is no better way to know us
E I K than as two wolves, come separately to a wood
A trek to the peaks in the winter. Seemed like a logical enough piece of advice to give, and Jaxis merely nodded a little, ears twitching.
The question is loaded, really, and Jaxis blinked those purple eyes of hers as she looked at the man. "Good enough. I have much to learn still." As she spoke, she wondered how she could show him her fighting skills, though it was likely he would want to fight her. Or pose some sort of match. She let that part go unspoken, instead taken aback by the next question, causing her ears to fall back loosely at the sides of her horns.
"Not really. I know the basics of reading, but never wanted to write. I was more focused on fighting," she admitted, her mottled lips turning in to a slight smile, a flicker against her muzzle. "It seems to be something I'm more... adapted to. Fighting, that is." Fighting, manipulation, trickery. Poisons fascinated her as well, but that was something she'd have to explore later. Dirty fighting.
To have the topic turned, Jaxis merely relaxed slightly. Eik. She knew that name from Torstein's lips, but to have it confirmed, she simply nodded her head a little, blinking once more. "It sounds better than being stuck here in the lands," she mentioned. Granted, she herself tended to wander out of Solterra now that she was older, but she didn't mention that, instead lifting her head up a little, arching her neck slightly.
"Jaxis," she stated, and her lips twisted in to a wry grin. "I'm certain you know my parents. Torstein and Araxes. My horns are a bit of a dead giveaway." It was hard to deny her heritage when her horns matched her sire's.
"Good enough. I have much to learn still." He nods silently, pleased by her response. The more you know, the more you realize you don't know- in war and most everything else, it seems. Only two-bit soldiers believe there is nothing left to learn.
She continues, speaking of the rest of her education. It makes sense that she would be drawn to fighting, and given her size it likely comes easy. He is tempted to give her some life advice, but refrains-- telling her to climb a mountain in winter seems like enough wisdom to impart for one conversation. So he simply bobs his head in understanding. It is not the life he would want for his daughters, if they had been born here-- but if they chose to walk the path of blood, he could not say no.
And anyway, there is nothing you can do to prepare someone for the shock of taking a life. So he leaves Jaxis' path unmarred by his comments-- no doubt she needs no guidance from this old bat. She seems to relax as the topic of conversation switches to himself, and this too he understands. They are starkly different creatures, and yet there are glimpses of understanding. He doesn't really want to like the youth, but for some reason he does.
"It is." He grins suddenly, thinking of all the poor fools who would disagree with them. "I'd go mad if I had to stay here." Though some could argue he is a bit mad (just a bit echoes his mind). The grin fades but its warmth lingers as he thinks of the open sky and the endless horizon. "It isn't for everyone, though." Apparently it's not for most people-- if it was, surely Seraphina could have found a better man for the job.
Their conversation has become a lazy, winding river, and onward they drift. Jaxis seems proud of her heritage- he wonders what that must feel like. Araxes-- the word has an ancient ring to it, a heft that makes him wonder how many have walked this earth with that name. Were they all the same person, born time and again? And then he wonders- How many Eiks have there been, how many Jaxises-- or are they the first of their name?
(First has no meaning anyway-- unlike the river, time is directionless. The ringing in his ears grows louder)
The pointlessness of his wondering settles in, and his attention returns to the matter at hand as easy as blinking his eyes. "A blind man could see your father in you," Amusement glimmers in his dark eyes. "But I do not know Araxes." He has not heard her name before, but in booming whispers the court has spread tales of the Warden and his night court fancy. It caused quite the scandal among the ignorant majority of Solterrans, the ones who could be born, live, and die here happily without ever feeling the rain on their back. "From Denocte?" He is curious, now and always, "Why are you here, and not there?"
- - - There is no better way to know us
E I K than as two wolves, come separately to a wood
It was obvious how much of her father was in her, with carbon copies of his horns perched on her head. While hers weren't as large as his, they were still massive, easily wielded to damage and harm. Still, Jaxis twisted her ears around to listen to Eik, blinking slow and steady as the topic dwindled to her mother, to Denocte. "Yes, from Denocte. The Champion of Wisdom." Her lips twitched a little, a bare smile that was gone the next moment.
"My brothers were raised there. Tor wanted me here, to raise me, so when I was of age, she dropped me off here with him. She still visited, up until the gates closed." She could imagine her mother, small and wings flaring, angry about the gates closed. A strange vision but one she was certain would be true. Shaking her head, Jaxis adjusted her weight on her large hooves, properly settling in the sands a little more and cocking up a hind leg to balance a hoof on its tip.
The mottled mare focused on him a moment, and surprisingly, she found herself enjoying his company. It was rare for her to genuinely like company of anyone, so perhaps getting invested with him would prove beneficial, even if she was leaving the court at some point. "So here I am, learning to fight from my father, and learning the ways of Solterra. Not exactly the most exciting life, is it?"
The night court is mysterious even to Eik and his far-flung travels. He's made it to the Arma Mountains before, and from there he saw the night kingdom sprawled across the shadow of the mount. The sight had ignited a curiosity in him and a sense of longing that he has not yet been able to soothe. He had once planned a voyage deeper into the kingdom to see for himself if a friend - Rhoswen- had come to embrace it as her home. But that dream had been snuffled with the closing of the gates.
She has brothers? This he did not know, although he wouldn't, given he actively tries to ignore gossip. He thinks briefly of his own brothers and sisters, and a small, sad smile creaks across his lips.
To distract himself from sad thoughts, he thinks about what it would be like to take Jaxis through the canyons one day-- most of Solterra is not interested in exploring them the way Eik does, with the exception of children. What would intrigue her the most, if anything at all?
"You have family, you've seen more of the world than most your age, and you're learning to fight from one of Solterra's most esteemed warriors..." He simply shrugs, not terribly interested in convincing the youth how lucky she is if she does not realize it already. Perhaps the only misfortune is that... well, it seems that most choices so far have not been her own but her parents-- but is this not the case for most children in Novus? And she certainly has a lifetime of choices ahead of her. A lifetime that will begin soon, little do they both know.
"A pleasure to meet you, Jaxis." He nods his head and flashes a quick, private grin. "I hope to see you soon enough in the arena." With that and no other explanation, he departs to the wilderness of Solterra. He has only the barest idea of the change that builds like storm clouds on the horizon, ready to wash them all clean.
- - - There is no better way to know us
E I K than as two wolves, come separately to a wood
@Jaxis DONE but very much looking forward to their next encounter! <3
The seasons were changing and she was slowly filling out to her third year. Tall, leggy, she held all the teachings of her father but there was more to learn. More to see. One day, she knew, she would forge her own life, make her own choices. Her ears twisted toward him, and she blinked a moment at his sudden farewell. There was nothing said, but she nodded her head toward him, dipping her horned head and letting out a breath as she did.
Without saying anything after him, she turned herself, hooves leading the way toward the oasis. A nice soak in the water would do her some good today, to loosen her muscles and ease herself. Perhaps an exploration as well, at least until her father needed her once more or called for her to spar again.
For now, there was much to do for herself, a moment of freedom.
