Illumin0sity

Journey to the East

Elann’s voice was heard on the wind as she greeted him. He looked at her in return, catching her blown kiss without any real effort on his part. It wasn’t as if he could clutch at it anyway, unless he lifted a talon, but he didn’t want to do that. No order came as it seemed Elann was resting for a moment. He took the time to rest as well, preparing himself for whatever was to come. Hunting was exhausting and his mind would have to be sharper now than before. He hadn’t been in the skies for a while for one, and for two, a lot of the predators that were gone in the winter were back in the spring. Just like him, they would be capitalizing on the fresh crop of prey in the area.

They had gone away from the caravan now, the noise no longer as loud as it was. He hoped they wouldn’t run into anything, but knew of the unpredictability of what he deemed as his domain. Noah wasn’t at ease in the forest at this moment, or not as eased as he would’ve been should Elann and he be just outside of Syliras. His territory had been forsaken and now he didn’t have any boundaries of his own. His borders were nonexistent and he was stuck in limbo until he arrived at the familiar territory of his father.

Elann stood and caught his attention with her words. He waited for her to continue off, following after her with his eyes, until he pushed off from his perch to take to the skies once again. Noah rose up into the air above the treetops and shifted his vision between Elann below him and the area surrounding her. He was playing guard more than searching for anything to swoop down on. The thickness of the forest was making him uneasy because he was unfamiliar with the region, and nothing of it held anything remotely recognizable save for Elann down there on the ground, walking.

For once, Noah felt as if he was too high in the air and forced himself to drift downward. It lessened how far he could see. The river brought cool air to the already cold winds and it was all he could see when Elann was hidden beneath the growing canopy. Noah fell down to the treetops, skimming over them with his belly and the underside of his wings. He didn’t have to flap in order to stay airborne, channeling the power of his divine mark to keep a constant flow of air underneath his wings even if he was going against the natural wind.

Once he saw Elann again in confidence, he rose back up into the sky, banking off to her right to disappearing behind the trees again. He was going to angle himself in such a way that would allow him to fish from the river, but as he was moving to position himself, he felt eyes on him. The wind shifted in a moody way as if in warning but it came too late for him to do much. He heard another furious beating of wings that weren’t his own. Looking over, he saw another bird, smaller than he, coming at him. Noah already knew aggression had ruffled the other raptor’s feathers, but he didn’t have enough time to react readily.

Noah rolled to turn his underside and talons towards his would be assailer just in time to deflect the grasping talons of what he recognized to be a falcon. He didn’t know the exact species, but it was angry and was trying to get him out of its skies. Noah knew the feeling the falcon felt all too well, but it was something else entirely to be on the receiving end of a raptors aggression. It was incredulous, actually, him being attacked when he usually did the attacking. Yet, he didn’t have time to process what was happening. His instincts of defense were already in gear and his man’s mind blurred over to give way to something geared entirely towards surviving.

Adrenaline filled him and his eyes searched the skies for the suddenly flighty falcon. He waited for the change in the winds to tell where the falcon was coming from and turned in kind to deflect another incoming blow. He squawked out loudly in more raising aggression than for help, his wings beating to keep him airborne because the falcon was interrupting the constant stream he had once been emitting. His small eagle heart pattered heavily in his chest as his muscles wakened and rippled with heightening furor in this aerial battle in which he was purely on the defensive.

Journey to the East

Noah saw the flap to the wagon’s exit close as Elann went to get dressed, or so he assumed. The man whose hat he had knocked away had done a quick search for the Kelvic but the bird was beyond finding, and Noah doubted the man would approach him once night came. While that remained to be seen, he didn’t hold his breath for either outcome. What he was waiting for was Elann and when she emerged from the back of the wagon, he took off from his perch to follow after her once she outpaced the caravan. He followed above her, his wings able to be heard by those below due to how close he was to the ground and treetops.

As if in greeting, the winds came to Noah and filled his wings. The eagle rolled in them, swaying back and forth as the winds played underneath his feathers and streamline body. He had missed the winds greeting him. Even though they often came to him when he walked on land, there was something else about the winds that filled his feathers. Perhaps it was that Zulrav marked him while he was in this untamed form, or perhaps it was that he was able to benefit moreso from the winds in this way than in the other. Whatever the reason, he was content.

Once the caravan had been outpaced greatly, Noah took on a more leadership perspective and ascended further into the heavens to acquire a more advantageous vantage point. In the distance, farther still, he could make out Aimee’s feral frame alongside the road, walking. He wanted to go to her, to ask her about her distance, but knew that he wouldn’t want to be asked about it. In that regard they were alike, so he let her be, wondering if Elann could see the maned wolf walking far ahead of them on the edge of the road.

Noah gave the area a onceover from his aerial sights and determined that nothing dangerous was in the area. Satisfied, he dipped back down and circled around until he was within hearing of Elann again. He spotted her easily and predicted her advancement enough to angle himself to a point he would cross her path. He didn’t dip down into her eyelevel though, his wing beats would announce his proximity to her if the bond didn’t. What he did was swoop down into the largest tree directly in front of her path and perch himself on the lowest branch that would support his weight without straining. He awaited her arrival and then waited for something that would resemble an order.

Journey to the East

Noah hummed softly as if he was agreeing with Elann's acceptance of his answer. It was just a hum to tell of no further words to come from his mouth on Aimee's disappearance because he had nothing else to say. He didn't know why his sister was suddenly away from them both, but felt she would return whenever she wished. Because his passive stance on the issue he seemed rather set apart from it, distant like he was on a lot of things.

He was going to drift away into his thoughts, eyes open, until Elann piped up about doing hunting by herself, asking him if he thought she'd encounter anything near the river. Noah assumed she was talking about encountering something dangerous or deadly. "You shouldn't," he said. If he were a land predatory he wouldn't have approached the loud and noisy caravan, and so he inferred that other predators lacking his man's mind would keep their distance for fear of encountering whatever was making all the noise. There wasn't a doubt in his mind that the caravan's scent was very present in the air, but the sheer amount of noise and commotion it caused is it strode through the woods was enough to deter anything.

She invited him along surprisingly, though shock did not show on his face. There was a small murmur of activity on his end of the bond at the mention of the invitation. He thought selfishly on how he could be close to Zulrav while staying within the sights of Elann without it necessarily seeming as if that was his motivation. He was slightly hungry and could go for something to eat too, and that feeling of quiet hunger was probably louder than the undefined emotion that perked up when she invited him out for the hunt.

"I'll go with you," he said in quiet Fratava, pushing himself up from the bench to move towards the front of the wagon where their luggage was.

It was a simple movement to slip off his shorts and turn to face Elann again with his fully bare body. Noah rolled his shoulders back, the upper parts of his back popping audibly. He stretched his arms afterwards, his eyes not entirely focused on much despite Elann being in front of him. His mind was surveying his body and its condition, taking up all his concentration. He took a few steps forward when he felt primed and transformed, the magical light shining bright inside the wagon. The dust was settled by his wings opening to grant him a gust of enough to settle on the edge of the bench, his dangerously sharp talons gripping into the wood to keep his balance.

His head twitched in a way to view Elann briefly, his usually light eyes, suddenly deep gold in color, harboring intensity. Just as quickly as his eyes settled on his bondmate they were looking at the open flap of the wagon. He leaned forward, pushing off his perch and opening his wings to propel him towards the exit. With a single contraction of muscles he was off the bench and shooting towards the exit. It came upon him in a half-second, forcing him to tuck his wings in order to slip through, only to open them up against immediately after he was on the other side. Afterwards he shot past the driver of the wagon behind them, knocking off his hat with a clip of the eagle's wing. Noah didn't so much as flinch at the near collision, his airborne stride too true to be deterred. He rounded the wagon Elann was still in and found perch in a tree, facing the caravan as it continued onward. There he sat to wait for Elann to come out.

Terra Magica (Open/Accepting Players!)

Right now, is there some sort of posting order or is it first-come-first-serve until the story gets rolling a little more and people start interacting directly?

Journey to the East

Noah listened as Elann answered him in Fratava. He was used to hearing her accent, having been forced to become acquainted with it the day they met. In Common it had been really thick and it was almost hard to understand her, especially with her limited vocabulary and substitution of words that were often odd in the context she may have been speaking in. Her accent in Fratava was lighter, but the implied emotion of the phrases did a little to bring up her roots. There was a twang in her words but at least she was trying to learn the language he was fluent in.

As he watched her speak he recognized the telltale signs of her sleepiness, the phase where she rocked between wakefulness and dozing. He hummed at her words and nodded to show he had listened and not just stared. Noah drew his legs up onto the bench and crossed them, holding his hands over his shins to drum lightly on the bone. Her question came on the whereabouts of his sister and he shrugged in reply, humming in ignorance.

“Not since this morning,” he replied in Fratava, keeping the phrase plain and literal in its meaning. “She left the wagon while you were sleeping and said she was going for a walk. That’s all.”

He bit down on the inside of his bottom lip idly, waiting for what else she had on her waking mind. Noah, himself, had little to say in the matter of propelling the conversation. He was considering taking a nap even though he didn’t feel or appear sleepy. It wasn’t because Elann was awake and he wanted to avoid her, but because there was nothing else to do that particularly interested him. His bondmate was there with her cold hands and feet though, so he stayed awake.

Journey to the East

Noah couldn't see Aimee either and figured that she was somewhere else walking alongside the caravan. He hadn't talked to his sister about any of the argument, nor did he think he would either. There was something else up in the air causing her to be distant from both of them and Noah didn't know what it was. He hadn't asked, leaving her to deal with whatever she was dealing with by her lonesome. Like him, if she wanted to talk about it she would come back. He took her distance as a non-matter and didn't bother her about it, letting her figure it out if there was anything to even figure out. He didn't act differently in interaction with her either, but he was sure his tacit behavior was probably sensed in some way by his siblings.

Noah drummed his fingers on the floor as Elann told him he should go, encouraging him to spend time with Zulrav in order to unlock the secrets of the gems. He shrugged slightly in reply, shaking his head afterwards. "I don't want to," he said, looking out of the flap. "I'm just thinking, that's all." He looked down at their touching toes for a brief moment before moving again in the next breath.

He picked up the stone his palm was laid over and raised it, the glow obvious despite it already being light outside. The driver behind their wagon had probably taken notice of the gem, and thus Noah pushed himself to stand. Until he figured the things out he really didn't want anyone else to see them. They were immensely precious to him despite his waning interest over the past few days. Still, he didn't want to tempt anyone's greedy hands with something that he didn't even understand himself. He was appreciative of Elann's quietness when it came to the matter, allowing him to figure out the secrets on his own.

"I'm done for right now," he said, moving to collect the rest of the stones. He lowered himself to his knees and hovered over the slightly discarded sack, piling the rest of the stones into the bag. When they were all done clinking against one another he tied the bag up and stood with it - more clinking ensued and continued until the bag was put away.

Noah stood there a moment with his bare back to her, a hand resting idly on his hip as the other trailed up to hair to play in the brunette depths. His eyes look over the inside of the trunk for something interesting. The book he had been reading was starting to bore him, having been burnt out on it early in the trip from constantly reading it. The hand on his hip fell limp as he pivoted on his heel to turn to face Elann again. All he really wore were a pair of his shabbily torn shorts and nothing else. It was one of the few pieces of clothing he felt entirely comfortable in but purely because they were old and loose.

He sat down on the bench and leaned back against the tautly stretched canvas, his eyes falling to Elann again. "Did you sleep okay?" he asked genuinely.

Journey to the East

Noah nodded in approval at her pronunciation of the new word. He was unsure if it was an actual word though; he had made it up himself using the laws of the Fratava language which was quite a literal meaning. He was sure, though, that many other translations for the stormgems could be made depending on who was asked. He was no linguist, just someone fluent enough in his language to be confident in creating new words for it. There was a slight humor in her not being able to pronounce them just right though because of her Benshiran accent. Still, he was approving of how close she got despite the limitation.

It was okay to keep the flap open, and he nodded at her words. She had been sleeping a lot in the past few days while he hadn't. The times she spent sleeping he spent in quiet liveliness. He really wondered quietly about his connection with his deity, a deity who had been all too present in the days following him and Elann's last fight. Zulrav hadn't left the skies, probably keeping a watchful eye over his Stormwarden. Sure, the deity was storms was omnipresent in the skies all over the world, but his presence was too strong for Noah to believe his attention was concentrated elsewhere but here primarily above him. The closeness of his god brought him constantly flowing comfort but he hadn't been to the skies to speak to his god in some time. Whenever he was outside messages came his way, the winds carrying clearer words than he had ever heard Zulrav utter before.

As Elann brushed her hair he looked out of the flap, setting the stormgem on the ground but resting his hand over it so that it didn't roll out of the wagon. He tuned out again as she was quiet, not really propelling the conversation anymore forward than it had went with his nodding. She was by him in the next moment, opening the other side of the flap to allow more air and light into the wagon's belly. Her question came to which he shook his head at.

"Not really," he said.

Despite Zulrav speaking to him much more than usual He still had not told Noah about the stormgems, leaving them as something to be figured out by the Stormwarden's own wits. Perhaps he wanted his Warden to be passionate about them, something to distract him a little more. Zulrav did not say, so Noah did not know for sure.

"They're still a puzzle," he continued after a short moment.

Journey to the East

Noah was ignorant to his sister’s motivations, having not had the chance to talk to her about anything. He figured she had heard parts of their conversation and drew her conclusions off of that, or Aimee was actually content with keeping her distance and engaging in more interesting folk than Noah and Elann. She could be social, this he knew. There were many ways he was like his older sister and there were many others in which he was not. Their socialness was one of those ways, but she had done little to bring him into the same likes as her. If they were together it was likely they were alone together, how Noah preferred it. Though there were times he would go out with her to give her something she enjoyed to do as well.

Elann’s voice came from behind him, the flap and unmuffled noise from outside probably serving as an alarm for her to awake. Noah sat at an angle, the profile of his being plainly able to be seen by Elann. He nodded at her words, affirming that he was working on the stormgems. He raised the largest one in his hand, the one he had brought with him to the entrance of the wagon.

“Stormgems,” he repeated before expressing it in Fratava, something that loosely meant ‘the stones that hold the storm’.

Noah looked to her then, giving her a slow lookover that told of his studying of her sleepy person. “I’m sorry if I woke you,” he said after the examination. “I can close the flap if you want to sleep more.”

He truthfully didn’t want to. Zulrav wasn’t blowing his breezes hard through the area so it was difficult enough to feel them as it were. With the flap open he could at least see a world he nearly yearned to be in by that point. The thoughts were dismissed nonetheless, one of his hands coming to tug at one of the frizzed curls atop his head. His sights refocused on Elann. Though, they had never really left, just glossed over in his brief thoughts that resided between his question and her answer.

Journey to the East

“Okay,” she said, none the wiser to his internal plight.

That was a good thing, he thought. The conversation would move on and he’d be allowed to keep his feelings where they were now, shoved away into some void he didn’t think he had within him. She sighed in what he believed was relief, probably just as thankful as him that the conversation was done, that he had conceded it and let her take whatever victory she could from, if there was any at all. There was comforting in hearing her sigh, surprisingly enough. If her breath were a wind it would’ve felt cold on his skin, warmed by the sun or not.

Noah smiled weakly at her voicing her love and welcomed her into him, allowing her to take the warmth he produced without fail. The breeze that went over him was warmed by his god’s love and near pity for him. It was sent to comfort him, but Elann felt the warmth of Syna on the wind. Noah knew the true intention and so he was thankful for that as well. His love for Zulrav found new boundaries to soar to and he let them. It was all he needed at the moment, the embrace of Zulrav, because Elann’s touching of him did little to bring the same warmth. Still, he didn’t act like it. He held her in the same way he would’ve if there was never an altercation.

He walked with her for hours, reveling in the fact that was he outside where he could see Zulrav and Zulrav could see him and continue to grace him with breezes of love. When night came, there was nothing extreme on his part. He stayed around the camp, letting Aimee go off by herself in order to hunt her night’s dinner. He ate with Elann as he did for the next three nights. The past days went on without much from him either. He didn’t show much interest in his stormgems, resolving himself to be defeated by them for the moment. In the past few days Elann also taught him about Yahal, but his interest in the god didn’t match hers. He didn’t necessarily give off that he was disinterested either though, absorbing all that Elann was planning to teach him.

Noah was rather consistent in his behavior in the few days that passed as well. He never dulled himself to Elann, but the strength of his emotions didn’t soar to any grand heights either. He didn’t hunt, staying mostly in the form of falseness. He could be comfortable in either form, but the experiences in both were extremely different. The twine connecting him to Elann stayed lax and shimmering whenever looked at by either of them, but it wasn’t afflicted with overwhelming feelings from his part. He was quiet as well, speaking when spoken to or when he needed to talk to someone about something, and the conversations were made brief whenever they were needed. Despite it all, he didn’t treat Elann any differently, showing her the same gestures of love he would otherwise and he was contently doing so.

For the first day in three he decided to meddle with his stormgems again, only taking the largest of the cluster out to hold in his hand. Below him the wagon’s floor jumbled him around, rocking him back and forth with a sway. His end of the bond was quiet and buzzing with his murmuring life. His was focused on the gem in appearance, but his mind was wandering elsewhere. After a quiet moment he got up and carefully walked towards the edge of the wagon, opening one part of the flap and sitting some small ways from the opening so he could feel the breeze outside.

Aimee was gone again, walking outside of the wagon to feel the breezes in her own way. Over the past few days she had distanced herself a bit from Noah and Elann, speaking more to the people of the caravan since she was tasked with taking care of some of the children at night. In the night she usually didn’t sleep outside of the tent that was Elann and Noah’s, instead choosing to either stay out all night with the wild and sleeping the day away, or sleeping in the wagon.

Journey to the East

Noah set his teeth around his tongue, thinking. The cord connecting his heart to Elann’s glinted softly in his mind against the darkness. The cord had recently been repaired by Elann’s loving hand, and he all too well remembered how crushed and hollow he felt when Caesarion had torn their bond asunder. It was a wound that had been healed but the scar was still there, a dull grey mark on the gleaming silver of the thread. It was further down the way, telling of his growth with Elann. He wasn’t sure if he could suffer another break like that, and so he had conceded. The stress put on his bond because of their arguing was enough to translate itself as palpable tension in his person. It affected him greatly, and he didn’t want to risk another break in the twine.

The Kelvic had hoped that the conversation would shift but it didn’t, Elann’s pleading voice coming to keep it around. Noah looked to her and tried to see the brilliancy in her eyes, and the bright glint that could reside in his could not be found without a little searching. He showed her a small smile of reassurance and shook his head.

“I just don’t want to fight anymore,” he said softly, “that’s all.”

It was a true statement. He wanted it to be over so that he could have the person he fell in love with, his bondmate, back. It wasn’t that she was gone, she was still there in the way she was sending compassion his way, but he did feel as if it was his own behavior which caused the rift between them. His mind said otherwise; it was her misunderstanding of him was what was the cause of the rift, and her assaulting and then withdrawing behavior that served to confuse him all the more.

Noah felt as if his bond was endangered by their fighting, and even if he did win, the victory would be too bittersweet to bring him any sense of peace. The bond would remain strained. He could foresee as much, and the last thing he wanted was for it to be broken or stressed constantly. He couldn’t play this guessing game of Elann’s position, her meanings, and emotions without causing himself trouble because it would erupt into more fights. He wouldn’t be able to take it in the long term, and in the short term it would drive him insane.

Noah brought a hand to his head and tugged on one of his curls idly, a rushing breeze coming from his back full of comforting warmth from Zulrav. He felt his deity in the air now even though the skies remained mostly clear. There was a cloud above that caught his attention and, as he looked up, there was an intense familiarity to it. He recognized it as Zulrav and found comfort in that. Sometimes, he thought, the wind had to stop when it met walls. The rain could be blocked out by roofs, thunder could be dulled behind stone, and lightning could be ignored when one’s eyes were closed. That’s what his god’s presence told him.

“I’m sorry that I made you cry,” he said to Elann, looking at her again. “I love you, too.”