The forest felt the most like home to the little doe of a horse. There wasnt yet a thicket for her to grow most comfortable in yet; like the one she had lived in when she was in her home world: but she had hope to finding one. But today's exploration into this forest wasnt for that . . . Today she had a new goal in mind, that came from the gold and emerald bow strapped to the side of her empty satchel. A few arrows sat in thr quiver at her side, but she needed more. Needed to understand the art of what it would take to make more, get the feel for the gifted bow. She moved through the forest, eyes peeled for any useful twigs. As she found them, the items would glow green before being tucked into her satchel. Loose feathers were added to the bag, until she had a small supply of both. Only then did she begin searching for flimsy, bendy pieces of twigs.
A small pile was soon gathered, as well as a pile off odd shaped rocks. Laying down by the piles, Cally started on the flimsy pieces of twigs, stripping them of bark with her hoof, before chewing lightly on them with teeth to help make the fibrous twigs easier to use. As she did so, a rock was levitated and brought down on the edge of another rock with as much mental strength as the doe had, slowly chipping the rocks into the shape of an arrowhead.
The actions weren't going to create arrows quickly, though, and Cally worked with a patience and dedication that spoke of her having done this before. As the fibrous, flexible twigs were chewed into easily wrapped and knotted bits of vegetation, they were set aside and the arrowhead stone put in another pile. Any rocks found to be too flaky was quick to be tossed aside as not reliable, as were the tough rocks that didnt want to break. Once those piles were prepped the mare took to handling the arrows shafts (or twings) she had collected earlier, stripping them of bark, and make sure they would be thick and strong.
Only then did she start fastening the first arrow, using her mind magic to wrap and bind the arrowhead to the tip of the arrow, and sorting through the feathers to find black and white ones. Setting the colored versions aside, to be used later; the female finished binding all the pieces of the arrow together, repeating the process until all of the arrow head arrows where complete and in her quiver, arrowhead down. Afte, she used the rest of the binding, feathers and arrows to make blunter arrows by sharpening the edges of the twigs and branches and rounding out the tip, and binding the colorful feathers to the end to be able to tell them apart from the arrowheaded arrows.
Once done, it was time for Cally's favorite part . . . Using the bow. She stood, a green glow surrounding a single blunt arrow and bow and fell into a familiar motion of use. The bow was held steady in her magic, the string tug taunt and strong as the little deer-horse narrowed her eyes with the calm expression and stance of an experienced archer. Letting out a slow breath as her eyes steadied on the tree ahead of her, particularly a note on it; she let the arrow fly, followed by two more in quick concession, each hitting the mark one after another. A smile touched the face of the former druid as the familiar weapon once more tucked against the empty satchel strapped to her side. Feeling far more prepared, the tiny doe-like equine began to travel through the forest once more, her steps sure and her movements those of a practiced, veteran explorer.
"Speech"
Let's jump on the sun and ride it to tomorrow together, where everything is brighter and sure to be better.
It had been winter when he had left his Court, and now the world was immersed in the heat of summer. He had seen Novus go from snow-capped to sun-baked, had watched new life spring forth from snow and fires alike. He wasn’t sure anymore how much of his time had been spent on the island, chasing gods and reveling in magic, only that it had been enough time.
Ipomoea had seen dead rulers and exiled princes, had watched ghosts dance in the flames of a bonfire and followed a deer with golden antlers. He had heard the cries of a people oppressed, a people without a leader.
He had walked beside a queen born from the sea and a king formed from the stars. Two sovereigns who had come together in kind to fight for freedom not only for their own Courts, but for all of Novus. It was not lost on him which leader was missing, and still he stayed. Still he had gone to the island and searched, day and night, for gods, for relics, for dead men walking. For answers.
He wasn’t sure, in the end, if he had received any of those things.
But there was a steadiness to his gaze now that had not been present when he left Delumine. And when he walked it was with a newfound sureness that he was moving in the right direction. The rosewood dagger fixed against his foreleg, too, was held in place with a comfortable ease, a confidence he never before would have held a weapon with.
Sunlight streamed down through the canopy overhead, the leaves turning the light itself pale and green. Ipomoea walked amongst the trees like they were his old friends, and in a way, they were. He had always loved the forest, loved the steadiness of the trees and the ancient feel of their thoughts. His mind brushed against them as he passed, and through them he could feel the warmth of the sun on the bark, the gentle wind that tousled their leaves like hair. He could feel the water in the earth around their roots, and the dripping of the sap filled the cuts where a bramblebear had sharpened her claws against the bark. Ipomoea smiled to himself, weaving slowly along the twisted forest path.
The sun had passed overhead when he heard a familiar twang in the distance. Interest piqued, he started towards the noise, as muffled thumps followed. He did not bother to conceal himself - he was home now. The forest was his guardian.
The girl was surprisingly small, but she held the bow with a practiced ease. He did not recognize her - and he had to quickly brush away the color of sadness that formed in his breast at the realization. I don’t know her yet, he reminded himself, and walked forward to intercept her.
“Hello,” he called out softly, an easy smile slipping onto his lips. “Do you mind a bit of company?”
The doe was feeling herself settle into the forest that came from an ease of surviving in another forest completely. So close to being like home, but not close enough. Still, she let herself relax, more so then normal and for a moment she almost forgot where she was, what she had become, what she was missing. A stranger to you comes. A stranger to you approaches. The woods should have sang those lines to her in warning. The forest should have buzzing with an eagerness to speak to her, to communicate. She should feel the warm embrace of the trees as they spoke of frivolous things. She should have heard them gossiping to one another, and to her. She should have heard the compliments of the flowers, as they both showered her with honey words, and fished for similar responses about their own colors. The forest should communicate her, and make her feel less alone. But all she heard from them was silence, and with that silence came the constant reminder that this wasn't home. She wasn't whole. And the need for the bow and arrows to be ready was driven hard into her chilling heart.
The greeting spooked her, and the little doe spun, her body lowering into a defensive position as her cloak flowed around her tiny form. A green glow surrounded her horn, the same glow surrounding the bow as it was immediately lifted and primed, arrow notched to fly and aimed with an experienced eye at the creature who had startled her. Cally stared in shock to see another horse there, and her eyes blinked slowly, as her defensive stance slowly shifted as she caught the familiar scent of her court on him. Of course, this was Dawn Court lands, Delumine. Slowly she shifted, standing as tall as her far-too-tiny-compared-to-this-giant stance would allow her, even as she watched who she saw as a stranger with guarded expression. The bow lowered as well, the glow around it dimming, and while the motion of it lowering happened, she didn't unnotch the arrow yet. He was, after all; still a stranger to the small deer - er, horse-deer.
The doe finally realized he'd spoken, and she forced herself to relax a touch more, taking in his smile and his easy tones. Only then did she unnotch the poised arrow, letting it fly back into the quiver, even as she let the bow fall to her side, where it would be easier to manipulate than tucking it back against her satchel. "Sorry, they didn't wa-" She paused, and the druid visibly flinched at the thought, the reminder. Her magic was cut off, had been since she arrived on this island. And where the earth should have spoken to her previously, to let her know of one approaching her, it was dead and silent to her senses. Her gaze cut away from him, as she steeled herself before looking up to him again and rearranging her sentence, "I didn't hear you approaching." She forced herself to shake of the lingering tenseness and managed an awkward smile, as if only just realizing she'd immediately aimed an arrow at buck . . . sorry, stallion before her. "And, sorry about aiming at ya . . . I'm normally not so jumpy with the bow . . ." She promised with an awkward but friendly laugh as she shook off the the feelings of betrayal at the silence the woods around her gave, and never felt the stirring of her magic that was so desperate to reach out to her and soothe the little doe. All her life she'd been in touch with it, and now that it was buried and unreachable with in her core, well walking through that portal and stepping onto Novus had led her to feeling more than a little like she'd lost who she was.
She brought her focus back to his follow-up sentence from his greeting, and nodding in consent, "I'd never say no to company. My name's Callynite by the way . . . most call me Cally, however. It's less of a mouthful. Some doe's shouldn't be allowed to name their fawns . . ." She stated in a friendly manner, relaxing just a little bit more before suddenly realizing her slip up, and could feel her face heat up, "Er, well. Mares, and ah . . . wait, what do horses call their fawns again? Fillies? Though I'd thought I'd heard colt used once before." She wrinkled her nose before finally shrugging it off. This was why she refused to conform to the idea she should identify even as a partial horse now. Who could understand all of that crazy terminology. And she'd been a doe far before she was forced into this half-and-half state she appeared in now. Another black mark for the magic of Novus in her mind.
"Speech"
@Ipomoea
Let's jump on the sun and ride it to tomorrow together, where everything is brighter and sure to be better.
He had not intended to scare her - and for a moment while she spun around and danced like some delicate forest native, he wondered if he had stumbled upon a deer rather than a horse.
She spins around with a speed born from instinct and practice, and Ipomoea falls as still as the trees when he finds himself on the other end of her arrow. It quivers slightly, sunlight glinting off the point of the sharpened stone edge. He traces that line with his eyes, and is surprised even at his own stoicism. His heart beats evenly, slowly, and when he lifts his eyes from the arrowhead to the mare, he smiles at her in a way that says ”it’s alright. This isn’t the first time for me.”
"That’s alright," he says smoothly, and when she finally lowers the bow and puts the arrow away, he dares to cross the distance that still separates them. "It’s not the first time I’ve had a bow drawn on me. I should have announced myself." He doesn’t say she should have been listening for his footsteps - how many times had he wandered Viride, lost in thought, deaf to the world? It’s been a while since he had last been here, and yet, he knows it easily could have been she surprising him, another day, another time.
"Foals," he corrects her, ears turned forward in interest. "Although if you want to get specific, fillies are female foals, and colts are male foals." And he wonders where she came from, and whether his initial impression of her being a deer had been correct after all.
"I’m Ipomoea," he gives his own name in turn, and watches to see if she recognizes it. He hopes she doesn’t; he’s been gone so long, Po doesn’t want to know what sort of reputation that has left him with here. "It’s a pleasure to meet you, Cally."
He’s far too aware of the bow at her side and the dagger on his own foreleg when he comes up beside her. Only a few months ago he would not have given them any thought - but he’s learned to wield a weapon since then, and he’s seen others draw blood with their’s. Now, while they do not make him nervous, he is all too aware of what people are capable of when they have the means.
"You must be new here," he asks her, although it comes out more as a statement than a question.
The sudden silence of a forest is always the cause of concern. It can mean a predator is approaching, or a horrible storm. When it stills, then concern should act up. When you fail to hear the birds, the insects, small rodents . . . immediately head to another location where the world seems alive again . . . but the type of silence Cally was receiving from the forest was far worse than even that. She'd never been aware of how much she relied on it, the simple chatter of the trees to each other, or her. The silly compliments of the flowers or the cattiness of bramble. She never knew how much she let it fill up a silence that came from a more solitaire life she'd built for herself. She threw her heart and soul into her magical ability, bonding with the forest in a way that a druid might not usually do . . . and now, cut off from her magic, and the natural world . . . so much was catching Cally off-hoof. So much seemed wrong, too silent, too cold . . . . to lifeless.
The doe would have been warned prior, that one approached, a silent call from the forest and trees, the flowers and blades of grass (or at least she would hope this land would grow to be as treasured a companion as her last one, as to warn her of such things). In her home world, the forest would have chanted long before he'd have come into view, giving her plenty of time to choose to disappear among the foliage (and aiding her escape to obscure her presence if she did choose this path), or wait for the arrival of a stranger. The forest would have been poised to help, to assist her in anyway, constantly whispering reassurances, or warning, or alerting her to other issues. Mindless chatter, advise and companionship from vegetation - but it was constant and now it was gone.
So the buck . . . sorry, stallion . . . had alarmed her as she spun around, instinct and years of travel and practice had her form flowing as she spun to face him, her steps light and bouncy - as was the nature of the deer she had been, and still partially was. But her steps where less of a playful dance, and closer to that of a war dance,, a bow rising with magic, the stone edge of her arrow locked onto him with out even considering that the one surprising her might be friend. This was a foreign land, and she hadn't met too many yet in it. She stared at him, as he seems to take in the arrow, his eyes slowly lifting from the arrowhead to her, and then . . . he smiles.
The doe is slowly relaxing though, cataloging all around her, and making note of his comfort level in the lands, the way he handles himself at the business end of a primed and ready bow. His scent that smells of the land. It all is silently adding up to the stranger being far less likely to be a foe, and more than likely to be a potential friend. Slowly the bow is lowered, the arrow tucked back away, but even lowered the bow is ready to be used again at a moment's notice, and she'd showed once how quick she was in lifting and lining it up - notched and primed. She might be a dainty doe, but she was growing in her fierceness. Her hesitation in firing at others and defending herself was lessening by the day. Now, it didn't bother her to imagine truly raising it in a fight.
He speaks then, however, commenting that it's alright and not the first time a bow had been drawn upon himself. She glanced to the side when he spoke of announcing himself, and she shook her head, "No, I should have been far more aware of my surroundings . . . I'm usually more aware of my surroundings." She made a mental note to her list of skills to work on, that she needed to make sure she was better aware, to make up for the lack of what her magic once helped to cover. He then provides her with some interesting information about terms that horses use, and her two sets of ears immediately shift forward in interest (even as a second later, the second set is aiming around them to pick up any low rustling sounds of others that might be approaching silently - least she be surprised again.
Foals, fillies are females, colts are males. What on earth - why would they have different names? "That just seems silly! Why do you use different terms for your doe-fawns and buck-fawns." She pauses then, thinking about her own terms, suddenly realizing the was kind of what she did, wasn't it. Naming the gender of the fawn in the elongated title. But still - three different words to describe a babe seemed a bit much. She shook her head with a heavy sigh, "I'm never going to figure out all that terminology thing." She declared with a huff of air, breathed out slowly from her nose, less like a snort of a horse and more like the sigh of a deer. She might look like a mix-breed, but her actions spoke of what her original form had been, had another been aware of her . . . identity crisis.
The male spoke again, his name being given. She pauses, thinking it over. It sounded vaguely familiar, but she imagined she'd just heard a similar one in passing somewhere. She'd certainly never met him. She did dip her domed head towards him slightly, her head angled just so, so that the straight unicorn horn wouldn't be perceived as a threat, but the flash of doe-antlers between her ears were visible rather than hidden among the long, and rather messy and thick mane she possessed. The pleasure is mine . . . Ipomoea." She says his name slowly, cautiously, carefully copying the way he pronounced it so as to not misspeak it. His next words seemed to be set up as a question, but felt more like a statement, and the doe tilted her head, a sassy smile crossing her features for a moment.
"Yes, quite new. What was your first hint?" She asked, her eyes dancing for a moment in amusement over the statement. "I think it's been . . . a moon cycle and a half since I found myself in Novus." She's quiet for a moment, her gaze turning inwardly as she seemed to catalog her time, before nodding, "Yes, that sounds about right." She stated calmly, before glancing around the land, "But I'm still getting used to . . . this place." And the quiet of the forest, the silence that made her feel so uncomfortable and alone, and blind and deaf to her own internal magic that clawed at the cage that the magic of Novus had placed it in upon her arrival. Where once her magic would have risen up in a sea of familiar warmth and love, it was caged away until whatever power that be felt she was ready for it once more. That time couldn't come soon enough for the druid deer.
"Speech"
@Ipomoea
Let's jump on the sun and ride it to tomorrow together, where everything is brighter and sure to be better.
He smiles to himself. "Why do we call each other male and female instead of just equine? At least we’re consistent in addressing our colts and fillies the same as adults. I suppose we just like to be more descriptive." Perhaps it did sound strange to someone else, someone not entirely-equine. Ipomoea wouldn’t know, not firsthand.
But she’s relaxing, and Ipomoea lets himself relax around her. The forest feels like home again, with the trees sighing all around him and the earth humming with each step he takes. He presses his shoulder against the bark, and his eyes slip closed for a moment. The trees of Viride were different than the trees in Denocte. He could see that now, the way their roots tangled beneath him in a web of connections.
His eyes flicker open when she speaks again, watching as she shakes her head and explains. Ipomoea nods his head along complacently with her words, and steps away from the trees. He misses the contact - he could sit here in the forest all day beneath the same tree, and never be bored - but now is not the time to lose himself.
She says his name slowly, almost uncertainly, and he can only smile in encouragement. It feels strange to hear his own name spoken, particularly so carefully - for so long he’s only been Po, and to him it feels like it’s a different version of himself now, the condensed and the expanded. He’s still trying to come to terms with it, when each day he feels like someone he shouldn’t be.
"Certainly not the vocabulary," he quips, and laughs good-naturedly. He thinks the trees might be laughing too then, because the wind sets the branches to dancing and the leaves make a dry susurration above them. It makes his heart feel heavy and light at the same time.
"So not very long," he fills in the blanks. "Tell me about where you came from?" he asks softly, when he steps towards the forest path. "And I’ll tell you something of Viride in exchange?" He wants to know more about her, about the land that had shaped her. Because he thought that maybe it had been somewhere good, and good places had a way of forming good people.
The doe tilts her head at the stallion when he seems to return her questions with his own, of why the terms male and female beyond just equine is used - and then relating it back to their fawns . . . er, foals. Cally nods slowly, thinking, "I suppose, when you phrase it like that, it makes a little more sense, might take some getting used to, but I'll get into the swing of it at some point." She mused, and slowly she is relaxing.
And as he seems to follow suit, she glances at the forest around them, and at the motion of the stallion pressing against the bark, his eyes closing, and something sharp twists in her heart as she forces herself to look away. He clearly has a close tie to the forest, a tie that she can no longer experience. Even as the wind sighs through the trees, the sound seems so dull and simple. The crescendo of the trees voices are lost to her ears, the land is still to her, and she yearns for a touch of that connection she once had. To hear even the softest of whisper from the vegetation, to feel the forest around her - to not be cut off from it's touch.
Her nose can press to bark, but all she will feel is the cold edges of the bark. No emotions, no welcome, no presence. Just dead earth, the pain of that is greater than she can say when she knows it lives wild and free around her, an un-containable force of power and life. Just not a force she can touch. So she distracts herself from that company - and as he steps away from the trees, she tries to hide the yearning in her eyes for even a touch of what ever connection he must hold.
A druid who can't commune with earth, she's become a joke. She focuses her attention fully on the conversation, and she puts that attention into the pronouncing of his name, careful to get it right, memorize the syllables and sounds to memory so she would't stumble over it in the past. His quip offers better distraction as she grins at his laugh, shrugging it off, with an amused smile, "Hmm, I suppose the vocabulary would give me away, wouldn't it? I'd promise to work on that, but I wouldn't keep it." She returned his quip with her own sass, a grin easily fitting onto the delicate muzzle, her large doe eyes gleaming with mirth.
She did nod in agreement to his assessment, "No, not long at all. Enough to get my hooves under my feet and to not jump every time I see my new reflection." She agreed. And then he asks a question she wasn't prepared to hear, and her expression shifted to something more forlorn, regretful, but she nods, "I can . . . it's a lot like Delumine actually. It's why I ended up making roots here." She had to be careful not to flinch at that poor word choice as well. In the Thicket, it would have been met with laughter, the druid making roots. Here, it was a dead joke at the expense of a stolen magic.
"Collectively, the land was named loosely, just called the Thicket. But . . . it was a magical place. Small villages scattered about for different herds, but primarily it was open lands . . . I'd spend days in the forest and never grow bored. Even alone there was a comfort to experience with the land, with the nature." Her gaze turns far away as she talks, "Jokes had been made that I was better friends with the trees than with the other deer of the forest. Not that it surprised them, druids are meant to be part of the forest, after all. The land was warmth though, and the forest protected what it had claimed. I miss feeling that, it's presence . . ." It would be as close as she could admit to the kind of connection she had lost when stepping through the portal, but if she had seen what she had thought between the buck, er stallion; and the forest, she was sure he'd likely know what she spoke of.
She turned back to him after schooling her features, her head tilting faintly, "Your turn. Tell me all of the secrets of Viride. What's Viride really like?" Many may be confused at how she could personify nature, as if speaking of an individual and not a selection to land - but when it came down to it, Cally wanted to know more than just what the forest looked like and where things was . . . she wanted to know the forest, even if by second hand.
"Speech"
@Ipomoea
Let's jump on the sun and ride it to tomorrow together, where everything is brighter and sure to be better.
He likes listening to her, as she speaks. The sound of her voice is the same way the forest sounds, when the wind tousles the branches and sets the leaves to dancing. It sounds like something soft but strong, the sound of voice that could whisper and calm something wild, something that the rabbits and the deer and the cardinals would accept as their own.
And as she speaks, he’s looking up at the sky, what little of it he can see through the interlocked branches. Sunlight is filtering down through those broad leaves, tinged gold and green, dust motes spiraling through the air. It looks, for a moment, like so many fairies dancing through the air, flitting in and out of view.
“Viride used to be like that,” he says when she finishes, his voice as soft as a bird flying far overhead. His wings shift, pressing themselves tightly against his fetlocks.
“It used to cover most of Delumine, back when Novus was still young. And the people who lived in it were like you, like your people; they were a part of the forest, connected to its very roots.” He shifts his eyes from the trees to her, and there’s something brighter about his eyes now, but also something that seems perhaps a little bit more sad. “The history books say Illuster was only formed when part of the forest was cleared out, so that the early Court could build its home. And Viride was never able to recover from the loss of its heart.”
He thinks about that often now, the way the forest, the way the entire land must have looked back then. It had been a wilder place then; sometimes the trees still felt like something wild when he asked them to tell him a story. Sometimes they acquiesced, and told him of a time when the trees and the people lived together as one.
He smiles, as he looks at her, and nods his head for her to follow as he steps forward. The underbrush parts with a whisper before him, revealing a thin game trail that weaves between the blackberry bushes and the bluebells. His hooves dig into the soft soil.
“But for those who have the heart to look, there’s still plenty of magic to be found here between the trees.”
There’s a light bobbing in the distance, something small and gold, hovering at the edges of their vision. And just when she might turn to look it vanishes, but faint laughter seems to fill the forest when it does.
There is a familiarity that is witnessed in the way the male stands, tall and strong like the elms growing to touch the sky, and yet swaying in the movement of the harmony to the world that once spoke to her as if she belonged - she was eager for the day that feeling of welcome returned. Every so often she could get the barest glimpse of what she had lost, a familiar hum when she brushed against the tree, a faintest whisper of her name when she was alone in the woods, a struggling desperation within her soul, begging to be released. It was one of the strongest things she missed of her Thicket home.
He tells her that Viride was once of a similar look, it was his next words that had her turning her attention fully to him, like you, like your people; they were part of the forest, connected to its very roots, Her features shifted to softness, even as a faint touch of pain was visible. Connected, still perhaps? Even if the world was silent to her? Was it the proof she needed to keep searching to re-establish that line, to refind this earth and live as a part of the forest once more. He speaks again then, his words turning to history - and her smile drops, her head shaking, "It's heartbreaking when a forest, any land is forced to die for its' inhabitants. In a way, is it not murder of its own . . . . my people were just as bad for it, and it broke my heart. The forest was always eager to provide, but it's screams of pain when its trunks were cut . . . it could effect even the least connected souls . . ."" She never could understand why the need to destroy a land piece, when she'd asked, it had simply moved for her to give room. When she had searched for a home, it had swelled to give her a hole in a hill to make her own.
She missed having that connection, when it had provided for her, and she for it, when it was an equal share and take from both sides. He then motions for her to follow, her steps easily following in, and she watches as the underbrush seems to part for him, showing them a trail, and she smiles at the sight of the easy acceptance of the male, yearning for the magic that she might one day embrace again. She glances back when he told her that there was plenty of magic to be found here, among the trees, and as if to prove her point, a small, glittering gold flash of light danced between trees, her head turning to track it to find it gone, and a laugh bubbled free, "It would seem, this forest is much more than it seems." Her gaze turns softly to the trees, her expression light and alive, "I look forward to getting to know it better." She could almost feel the answering swell of 'soon.'
"Speech"
@Ipomoea ;; Planning to reply to one of the patrol posts next, but I wanted to get this post in so we can wrap it up and close it, I figure next post by each can wrap up their talk ending and IC departure? I need to get her exp up the final six points to upgrade her magic.
Let's jump on the sun and ride it to tomorrow together, where everything is brighter and sure to be better.
He listens to her, nodding his head along to her words. Oh, she must be a nature spirit indeed, to know enough of Viride only by comparing it to her own home. She may be a newcomer to Delumine, but already it seemed she knew more about the forest than many of its own citizens.
But then, Delumine had always been that way, at least as long as he had lived in it. The scholars were always focused on solving the next biggest question, and replacing it with a new one as soon as the answer was within their grasp; sometimes, he wished they would slow down and appreciate the question for its complexity, or the answer for its simplicity. He had never had the same tenacity as them, even in his studies, even when he had dared to tentatively call himself a scholar of Dawn; in his private readings, he was likely to spend just as much time losing himself in the patterns of a tree’s interlocked branches as he was to spend reading the assigned text.
He had found many wondrous things here in Viride; many of which his mentors had discounted as his own imagination.
”And, I think it’s just as eager to get to know you.” Already he was moving away with a laugh, surprising himself at how easily it came to him. After months of waiting, after the magic of the island and the heat of the desert and the mindlessness of Denocte, he was home. And the trees were shivering with joy, shaking away his fears like so much dust on the wind. And while the war with Raum and all the ache it had caused had been nothing small, the trees had a way of letting him know that it was okay, because he still belonged here even if he had stood in blood.
”Come and see for yourself all the reasons why we love Viride, and Illuster, and the Rapax that brings life to it all.”
And then he laughs again, and it sounds something like falling leaves as he turns and makes his way along the familiar beaten paths, and the forest echoes with the sound of his homecoming.
"Speaking."
@Callynite my closers are always short it seems, sorry!
