Nothing was right about this place. From the strange forest he'd woken in with nothing familiar nearby, the spark of Mages in the wrong place and far too concentrated to the way the Magic beneath and around him ran wild and untamed--as it should have been, and damageless. There was no need for him in this place. As grand an idea as that was, it was...difficult to reconcile. When one has already resigned themselves to the fact that they'll be dead before their work is finished, and then to find it waiting already done (or, more likely, never needed)...
The first reaction was tears. He wasn't sure how long he cried. No, nothing was right of this place...except...for a soft pull of something... But the name slipped away when he tried to remember. He could only indulge that for so long and, dammit, he'd lived in forests his entire life. He'd been trained since birth to survive being separated from home and family.
The Tayledras didn't die easily.
He wandered, purposeless, for days, then weeks, then he stopped counting. He killed what he needed, moved when too many younglings came searching for hauntings. Rumors and stories of ghosts in the forest followed behind him like children, but he had long ago ceased paying attention to stories. Some said the ghost was a boy who had wandered into the forest and gotten lost, killed by his own body's needs or a wild animal. Others said it was a young girl, left on the eve of her wedding. Her suicide, they said, was of the grief of loneliness and kept her tied to the forest, even after death, searching for something to ease her grief.
They couldn't possibly know how close to right they were. He had lost something, was still searching for it, was empty without it. And that voice that Vanyel had once called "ancient rocks and deep water" remained silent. There was no one to speak to, so why should he speak? Only the birds of the place seemed to gather around him, sense that something was off about this man who hadn't been here before, tried to comfort him in their utterly innocent ways.
It was only by accident that he stumbled across that something feeling again, stronger this time. It pulled him to the edges of a campful of strange people that he almost entered but...something held him back and he instead watched from the fringes, observing only. Even the birds were obligingly silent for him.
Until he laid eyes on one of the darker ones. Then he couldn't help the half-strangled whisper that escaped from him before he could clamp a hand over his mouth.
"Ashke..."
And he almost ran to him--but again...something kept him hidden behind the safety of the trees.
From there he followed the group, always on the border between ghost and substance, always just beyond sight and into thought. He watched and whispered, not sure what to do with himself any longer. He watched as the dark-skinned elf visited another of the mages that night before what would be their final battle and he almost thought that he was right to stay beyond reach. Yet, in the morning when he left the tent, and the ghost watched, he wondered if that had been the right conclusion.
Yet, as they prepared for the fight, he couldn't resist any longer. A gentle mindtouch was all it took. Words and feelings of love, concern, hope...sensations of embraces, touches, caresses that he could only half-remember, might have been delusions for either of them.
It was all he could do for now, alongside praying to a goddess who had never lived in this place that they all would return whole.
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timeasmymeasure
HERE HAVE ALL MY TEAL DEER
Date: 2012-09-24 09:08 pm (UTC)The first reaction was tears. He wasn't sure how long he cried. No, nothing was right of this place...except...for a soft pull of something... But the name slipped away when he tried to remember. He could only indulge that for so long and, dammit, he'd lived in forests his entire life. He'd been trained since birth to survive being separated from home and family.
The Tayledras didn't die easily.
He wandered, purposeless, for days, then weeks, then he stopped counting. He killed what he needed, moved when too many younglings came searching for hauntings. Rumors and stories of ghosts in the forest followed behind him like children, but he had long ago ceased paying attention to stories. Some said the ghost was a boy who had wandered into the forest and gotten lost, killed by his own body's needs or a wild animal. Others said it was a young girl, left on the eve of her wedding. Her suicide, they said, was of the grief of loneliness and kept her tied to the forest, even after death, searching for something to ease her grief.
They couldn't possibly know how close to right they were. He had lost something, was still searching for it, was empty without it. And that voice that Vanyel had once called "ancient rocks and deep water" remained silent. There was no one to speak to, so why should he speak? Only the birds of the place seemed to gather around him, sense that something was off about this man who hadn't been here before, tried to comfort him in their utterly innocent ways.
It was only by accident that he stumbled across that something feeling again, stronger this time. It pulled him to the edges of a campful of strange people that he almost entered but...something held him back and he instead watched from the fringes, observing only. Even the birds were obligingly silent for him.
Until he laid eyes on one of the darker ones. Then he couldn't help the half-strangled whisper that escaped from him before he could clamp a hand over his mouth.
"Ashke..."
And he almost ran to him--but again...something kept him hidden behind the safety of the trees.
From there he followed the group, always on the border between ghost and substance, always just beyond sight and into thought. He watched and whispered, not sure what to do with himself any longer. He watched as the dark-skinned elf visited another of the mages that night before what would be their final battle and he almost thought that he was right to stay beyond reach. Yet, in the morning when he left the tent, and the ghost watched, he wondered if that had been the right conclusion.
Yet, as they prepared for the fight, he couldn't resist any longer. A gentle mindtouch was all it took. Words and feelings of love, concern, hope...sensations of embraces, touches, caresses that he could only half-remember, might have been delusions for either of them.
It was all he could do for now, alongside praying to a goddess who had never lived in this place that they all would return whole.
He could only hope that would be enough.