Illumin0sity

Journey to the East

The birds were roused by Noah’s waking whistle, mimicking the morning calls they often gave off to wake others and the humans below them. He heard them shifting and fluttering awake in the trees. Elann came to him, her bow, arrows, and wrist-guards in tow. He looked to her with the same alerted eyes as Aimee and shook his head. “No storm,” he simply said, unknowingly lying. The rain wasn’t going to fall but all of this spoke in warning and Zulrav was attempting to forewarn all those in the camp, though it was only Noah who could hear the deity clearly. There were words on the winds and a deep speaking in the thundering above, the voice of Zulrav.

Aimee stood before the lead guard of the caravan, a gruff man who had been in the business for a long while she figured. She gave him all of her warning and unease and at first he was going to dismiss her as a spooked woman but he considered her two identities, one of a wolf and that of a woman. The man had a dog at home and recalled how they would behave before storms. It was a lucky circumstance but it made the man listen to Aimee enough to start rousing the rest of the guards from their laze, even waking those who had fallen asleep.

There was another surging wind coming in from the forest to their south side and the smell of new human life came to her snout in full. Her ears turned towards the scent and picked up the quiet thud of approaching hooves. The treetops went up in an uproarious chorus of warning calls, calls that Aimee understood well enough.

As the birds shouted above, Noah looked past Elann towards the direction of the river to the south and peered through the trunks. The clouds were encroaching over the moon but her peered on in search of anything. Lightning struck the distance, illuminating the entire area for the briefest of instances. It was enough for Noah to make out the crouched down figures in the thicket. The sound of hoofbeats came from the same side and the birds wailed on. Wide-eyed, he looked to Elann and reached to her, grasping ahold of the fabric of her top tightly.

The music of the camp ceased entirely as the birds drowned them out and the inhabitants were standing, watching the guards as they readied themselves. Aimee looked in the direction of the approaching hoofbeats and listened to the whisper of an arrow as it loosed in her direction. Her breath caught as it flew and sunk into the guard to her right, making him shout out in instantaneous pain as he fell backwards. His body didn’t hit the ground before Aimee was sailing over it, running towards Elann and Noah. As her foot hit the ground from her jump the battlecries of the creeping assailants erupted to rival the birds, who were thrown into the air by the angry voices.

Boots clunked on the ground as women screamed out in fright, going for their children in the tents. The guards had barely a half-second to collect themselves before their comrade was down and the assailants were advancing on the camp. Aimee ran on, panic in her eyes as the first sounds of blue steel clanged against one another.

Noah looked to his sister as the battle erupted behind her. There were only footsoldiers right now but the horses coming in sounded louder with each second. There was a humming in Noah’s ears, something resembling the sound of when he was struck by lightning in order to create the stormgems. His sights went inside of the wagon’s car and noted the humming was coming from inside it. The trunk the gems were stored in had pale white light spilling out of the closed lid.

Aimee came to them and he met her hurried gaze with his own. “The stormgems,” he said frantically to her. He couldn’t move fast enough himself to get them but knew his sister’s nimble frame was light enough to do so seeing as she had made short work of sprinting across the camp to them.

She stuttered a nod in his direction and ran around him and Elann to throw herself into the wagon. Her feet thudded loudly on the sanded wood floor and the chest creaked aloud as she thrust it upwards and open. Inside was the bag of gems, of which she heaved out with a breath. The bag clattered noisily to the floor but she didn’t pause there to give him the bag. She jumped over to her own chest and threw the lid open. Reaching inside, she produced a shining dagger without a sheath. It was a simple curved dirk. She tucked the handle into her palm and used her other hand to scoop up the sack of gems, spilling a few of them out before she had a collected handle of the fabric sack.

She came back to the exit of the wagon and jumped down, the bag of gems dropping the side she carried them on as they caught up with her leap. Aimee turned and threw the bag back onto the edge of the wagon and reached inside, grabbing the first one she could and handing it to Noah’s eager hands. He had not seen the dagger gifted to him by Elann during their marriage since they left Syliras, and the last he saw of it, Elann had it. For now he had his gem and hoped the secret he unlocked would reveal itself to him again when it came to defending himself and his family.

Aimee composed herself beside Elann and looked on with frightened horror as the common men protected their families with heirloom swords and daggers. The assailing cavalry bursted from the thicket, a collection of five horsemen, one of them barking orders as soon as he arrived. The bright gem in Noah’s hand caught the attention of the man and he hollered an order towards the two Kelvics and the Benshira, his sword pointed at them.

Heeding the lead bandit’s order, two of the horsemen who arrived with him turned their horses about and charged towards the trio. Aimee didn’t let her fright keep her stiff. She was used to reacting in the face of danger; if she couldn’t run then she fought and in this instance she chose the latter. Her free hand came up, the palm opening as it was thrusted forward. Her fingers were licked with flames as an orb of embers was conjured and thrown towards the rightmost horseman. The orb sailed through the air and detonated into an engulfment of flame just before the horseman’s horse and spooked the roden creature, causing it to rear up and throw its rider down onto his back.

The other horse was spooked as well, stopping in its charge. The mounted horseman gripped the reins and ripped the horse broadside, regaining control but leaving him open to attack as he fought to keep his horse underneath him.

Journey to the East

Aimee looked to where Elann pointed and noted the shadow her brother’s legs cast on the ground. She watched her brother shift his weight, one foot coming up as the other took on the bulk of the Kelvic’s light frame. Looking back to Elann, the same uneasiness was in her eyes, seemingly unperturbed by Noah’s safety. The winds change was unhinging because it didn’t make sense that the clouds were advancing if the wind wasn't pushing them. Atop that, there was the fact that lightning and thunder roamed and rumbled yet no rain was in the air. It could’ve been a dry thunderstorm, surely, but she would’ve felt at ease otherwise.

The first verse of the campfire song was started, the lead singer was a woman with a pleasant yet soft voice. To Aimee it was almost horrendous and ringing in her ears, some form of hyper-alertness taking her over. She kept rubbing her wrists, her eyes wide and flicking as if she was Noah. They flicked to Elann, an urgency in them.

“Go to him, please,” Aimee urged. “I don’t feel well.” It was a grand understatement. Aimee’s stomach was flopping about yet felt as if it was bound by belts at the same time.

The flapping of the tent because of the wind made Aimee’s sight shoot there. Should she have been a wolf, her ears would’ve been fluttering this way and that. There was a deep sense of apparent paranoia in the maned wolf and she was pressed to the tips of her toes, like a coiled spring ready to bolt. She looked to Elann again and nodded her head firmly in the direction of Noah before pulling away from the Benshira altogether.

Aimee went back towards the bulk of the camp but disregarded the people entirely. The guards whom were preparing for their nightly shift sat around a fire finishing their dinner. Their weapons were near them as they stood or sat around their own open fire. Even though there were fires around her, the orange flames dotting the camp slowly, Aimee’s skin was chilled. Initially she wanted to blame it on her short sleeves and lack of insulated leggings, but there was something she felt was physically crawling beneath her skin causing the goosebumps.

Noah looked to the sky as another rumbling spat of thunder came, the lightning etching through the rounded bellied clouds. The wind was blocked by the caravan at his back but he listened to the thunder. As if compelled, he turned back towards the front of the wagon, the way Elann had went, and used the wagon’s frame as a crutch until he came to the harnesses that held the horses who drew the vehicle down the road. He rounded it entirely, walking slowly towards the back of the once decorated car that he had slept in that day. He didn’t stop there though, continuing on until his frame could be seen peeking towards the camp and the woods in the background.

The wind surged at him, the tents flapping because of it, and he was filled with a sense of unease as well. It was apparent in his eyes and how they intently shot back and forth from one end of the camp to the other. The little birds in the trees were sleeping but he called out to them anyway, a series of high whistles to jar them awake.

Journey to the East

Noah’s attention went to Elann once again as she moved away from him, the air cold on the side she was once standing on. He looked at her with softness to indicate there wasn’t irritation or anger on his mind just thoughts; when he was angry it often showed, and his moods were often discernable based on how his brows and eyes showed. She left his space and he followed her with his eyes, meeting her gaze as she looked over her shoulder at him. Though he didn’t return her smile, he nodded to say he heard her words. When she was gone around the front of the wagon he turned back to face front and watched the wood again. A wind swept in from his left, chilling his side. It held no message this time around, but Noah’s eyes went to the sky anyway where clouds were rolling in from the direction of Syliras.

Noah didn’t move from his spot, simply shifting his weight from chime to chime. His feet could clearly be seen from underneath the wagon when viewed. In the camp, Aimee had bid the children goodnight. Having had thoroughly enjoyed her teaching session, she moved with the cook to put away his dinner making tools for that night. She wore the same outfit as she put on that morning, her barefeet cool against the soft grass and worn road. The winds that blew in from the east were welcomed by her and they blew at her mane of hair.

When such cool winds blew in Aimee usually looked to the sky and it was what she did now. She saw the clouds rolling in and inclined her head to sniff the air. She couldn’t smell rain on Zulrav’s breath but there was an unease in her that forced her to hurry along the aiding of the cook. She bid him a tentative goodnight and turned back to the camp. The air was being twanged away by the guitar of one of the campers and the beginnings of a woodland hymnal were being hummed by the people as they gathered around a large fire. She walked on by, waving to the people whose eyes followed her. The fire flicked and licked at the air as the wind pushed on.

Finding what she was truly searching for, she hurried over to Elann, her quick walk turning into a jog as she came upon the Benshira who was finishing her tent, having just made another trip from the wagon. “Elann,” Aimee said cautiously in a whisper.

Above, the clouds seemed to advance far quicker than Aimee had seen before. There was lightning in them and as it crackled far above in the sky, the rumbling that came was menacing. The wind shifted from the east to blow from the southwest and it gave the wolf a total pause in her movement. Her speech stalled and her head inclined once again to sniff the air. The wolf rubbed at her wrist. On her already fair skin was a barely seeable set of pale scars.

“Where’s Noah?” Aimee asked Elann, slowly turning her gaze to the thicket around them.

Journey to the East

There was nothing said in reply to Noah’s silence and he was allowed to wallow in his thoughts. Elann settled into her stance beside him and let the unknown chimes tick on past. He listened to the world around him and ignored the people on the other side of the wagon. Again, the hooting of an owl could be heard and it was the heartbeat of the woods there before him. He pictured the rodent that would become the owl’s catch and it led his imaginative mind into the skies of his old domain just outside of Syliras.

Before he had met Elann, he would go hunting two times a day and flying just for the sake of it whenever. His job as a courier was always finished early so he could escape the confines of the grey castle city in search of the freedom of his woodland home. There were several trees he would perch on to view the world from and he remembered the feeling of deep security because he was the ruler of that demesne. Here, at night, he recalled soaring high in the sky above the trees and observing the shadows that Leth forced the trees to cast onto the dimly lit forest floor. It took a year to stake a claim that large and he had been ruling it for two more before Caesarion and Elann came into his life. For the first time he had understood what it meant to be atop the world and unchallenged and understood the position his father probably felt as if he were in.

Elann’s whining stretch and words brought him back to the present and he looked over to her as she spoke. “I’ll stay here,” he uttered. Having remembered what it felt like to be that high instilled a sort of pride in him, one that made him reluctant to show himself to the rest of the people of the caravan because he was so low now.

It was saddening to think about his past. Not even his dreams were filled with his memories of the past. When he did dream they were vague or sad, the most recent being the nightmare he had. Whether Elann left or not, he put his attention back forward towards the darkened trees and let his vision blur because his focus was in his mind and not there around him physically. He brought his arms up to hug himself as he thought on the night-terror.

Journey to the East

Noah nodded at the whereabouts of Alena. He had made a personal promise to her, unbeknownst to her, that he would see her when he was up and walking around again. Though this barely counted as walking in his opinion, it was enough to qualify as the prerequisite to fulfilling his promise to her. He thought of the promise and Alena as he met Elann’s eyes. She leaned beside him, looking to the treeline not that far from them. Because of the darkness the trees looked ominous, eerie, and almost evil in their natural state. He followed her gaze into the trees and saw nothing, just the shadows cast because of the moonlight above.

The Kelvic’s gaze was downtrodden to the ground when Elann told him how long it would be until his stitches were to be removed. It was disheartening and he really didn’t want to keep walking around everyday. If anything, it spurred him to want to laze the next week away in a numbing haze that he would be pulled out of by his stitches being removed. The dip in his mood caused him to hum ignorantly at Elann’s question encouraging him to walk more in order to get better quicker. “Maybe,” he said lowly to her.

Noah looked down at his trousers and played with the fabric over his thighs with his loosely hanging hands. It had been a week since their fight and he still held conflicting feelings regarding it. The fight was the last straw in his opinion and arguing with her never brought him any satisfaction; it either ended in one of them crying and hurt. Elann always cried and he always took it as a plea for cessation and comfort, of which he gave until the most recent argument. It had been a brutal blow to his bond with her and it was stressed beyond belief. It was a wonder, in his mind, that the cord didn’t snap because of the tension, but he realized he held onto the hope she would understand him as he had been trying to do her.

Forgiveness was toyed with in his mind but was always bought out by reminders of repeatedly inflicted wounds. Though the physical healed and the mental and emotional could be ignored and covered over, the scars had been irritated and inflamed and then, eventually, the wounds reopened. Open wounds gave way to infection, contempt, if not closed and healed. Noah hoped he could avoid further infliction by unwillingly engaging in any other conflict with her. Perhaps selfishly, he was sparing himself or, perhaps damning himself to something else.

Noah took a breath and looked up from his hands playing with the fabric of his pants. He didn’t want to walk as much as he wanted to stand and enjoy the breezes he hadn’t felt in full in a while. It was nice to fill his lungs with the wind he was so grateful for. He looked intently into the woods, knowing the prey he was wanting to pursue was behind the trees presented before him and Elann.

Journey to the East

Noah listened to Elann’s explanation on how she didn’t have a problem putting up the tent, pointing out her own habit of putting his needs before hers. At least the both of them didn’t like him being in the wagon day in and day out. He did wish though, that she spoke with more confidence instead of leaving it up to him whether or not the tent got put up. He assumed it was she who was being considerate of what he wanted given he was the injured party, so he let it be.

“Okay,” he said in regards to the tent.

Then, Noah began to move, standing to ease towards the end of the wagon where he waited for Elann to help him down. His face showed his discomfort and it all persisted until he was on the ground again, the grass underneath his feet. He took a breather, resting with a hand on the edge of the wagon’s frame as he waited for most of the ache to subside. As he stood there, he considered the feeling of the grass beneath his feet and how he had missed it. The outside breezes were encouraging, though they were light and spoke of how Zulrav was absent from the area at the moment.

Noah continued on with careful strides, his head watching his feet as they stepped onward to carry him towards the wagon parked behind theirs. He ignored his discomfort for the most part and kept his pace slow enough to not need to use Elann. It was just walking, he told himself to continue on. He made it to the canvas side of the other wagon and stopped, pressing his shoulder to the frame of the wagon’s car.

“Have you seen Alena?” Noah asked Elann, looking to her.

They stood on the side of the wagon facing the forest. On the opposite side was the camp and many of the people. As it were now, there was no one on this side with them since everyone was setting up their tents or getting ready for bed.

“Do you know when I can get the stitches out?” he added, knowing it would be a sign of progress aside from his walking and slow decline of pain.

Journey to the East

Noah watched Elann as she left him with the plates. As he figured she was going to turn the plates into the cook, or whoever took them, and would return, or so she said. He pulled the blanket off himself and revealed the trousers he was wearing beneath. He had half the mind to take them off since he had worn them to sleep. Though clothes usually discomforted his sleep, and he had gotten enough of that from the days he slept on Elann’s couch, it didn’t bother him earlier because he was under the influence of the herbs. Now they almost annoyed him to look at and have on his legs any longer. They remained though, seeing as Elann didn’t exactly like him being nude all the time, or, at least, it was what she gave off.

Outside, Aimee was tending to the remaining children who weren’t helping their parents with the tents that evening. She was testing their knowledge of Fratava and, aside from the trade-speak, a few of them knew the simpler words she was saying. To teach them more she slowly went through a Fratavan nursery rhyme and translated it once she was done. Her seamless switching of languages was enough to amaze the inexperienced children. Even though it was possible their parents spoke fluent Fratava as well, it seemed Aimee captivated the children. To many of them, it had been their first experience with Kelvics and the fact that Aimee possessed so many talents and abilities was awe inspiring.

The she-wolf turned to Elann when the Benshira came up to her and told her she had eaten already. She also added that she would be staying out that night, figuring that her in-law and brother would welcome the relief of privacy after she had been around and hovering over Noah’s wellbeing as if she was a doctor. There was also the point that she had overheard the morning’s proceedings and inferred that the reason the presses had been stopped was because of her unfortunate presence. Still, as it were, she thought on what Noah had told her about Elann that morning as well.

Aimee kept the thoughts in her mind, bidding Elann a good night with a smile and polite wave before returning to the children and testing their Fratava with the nursery rhyme. Inside the wagon, Noah had set a pillow in his lap, having had been hugging it, before his attention was grabbed by his barefeet. Idly, he picked at the nails of his toes until Elann showed up at the back of the wagon again, coming through the flap to set herself down across from him. He sat up to give her his attention as she asked her questions, both of which were answered with hesitation.

“I can try,” he said, thinking Elann wanted him to be up and about. He, too, wanted to be up and about but wasn’t looking forward to the discomfort it would bring. He felt well enough to not lean on her for support but he also felt as if that would change once he was on the ground outside.

“Would you just want to stay in here?” he suggested about the sleeping situation. “You already decorated it and made it comfortable. You don’t have to put the tent up again.” Noah believed he was saving her energy and effort, though it didn’t take her a long time to even put up the tent in the first place, he still figured he was suggesting something favorable. He was attempting to be considerate.

Journey to the East

Noah followed Elann’s gaze enough to see she was looking at the stitches in his arm and ribcage. She didn’t say anything on her wants but he could infer that she wanted to lay on him since it was what she often did. The stitches impeded that and he wished they were gone all the more. Enjoying her petting, he listened to her sweet voice with a plain face, nodding to tell her the small changes were a blessing. He watched her look over her shoulder and then ask if he was full, chuckling at swarming children. “I’m fine,” he said in regards to him being hungry still. Having two plates of food had filled him up but not to the point of discomfort.

Elann bringing up hungry children made him think on the conversation they had a long while ago in the confines of Elann’s apartment. He wondered about their own eventual children or if they would have any at all. Elann had expressed her fears of being a barren wife, unable to have any children of her own, and Noah hoped that wasn’t the case for her sake. He didn’t feel particularly strong about having children one way or another and was content with it being just him and Elann. That said, they had coupled a few times already and he was open to the possibility of them having children. Yet, as had been brought up before, he was perfectly alright with adopting a child or two, if it was what Elann wanted.

The more he thought quietly about potentially growing their family the more he found himself wishing their children to be Kelvic like him as well. Most of all, he wished to carry on the seemingly inherent gene of his which made predators of all his siblings. In addition to that, he yearned for one of his potential children to be a golden eagle like himself and his mother before him. If he could get nothing else, that was what he wanted most of all. He also wondered what the chance was for his children to be Kelvic given his apparent pureblood heritage. His father’s blood seemed strong enough to strain out most traces of his mother in all his siblings, including himself. None of them had her blonde hair or cyan eyes. They all had their sire’s dark locks and blue, easily impressionable eyes.

“Are you going to take the plates back?” he asked curiously. He figured she would and would be back again. Following his question he looked towards the flaps of the wagon and wondered where Aimee was. Seeing as there was a collection of small, quick moving critters for dinner that night, he couldn’t help but think she leant her hunting prowess to the camp’s cook in order to secure more diverse food. It wasn’t above her to help others like so, he thought, especially lately it seemed.

Journey to the East

Noah considered what she said about Zulrav and how she felt open to him for the first time. It was a start, he supposed, but he knew his deity and knew what Elann was doing wasn’t enough. It was a start though, as he thought. Zulrav, upon marking Noah for the first time, confessed he had been watching the Kelvic since birth. It confirmed Noah’s mother’s inkling that the storm in which Noah was birthed in was Zulrav’s presence and announcement of Noah into the world.. Even then, it took six years for Noah to get a mark he wasn’t even initially seeking out.

With the thoughts on his mind he watched her shrug and chew on her lip quietly, thinking on how Zulrav saw his bondmate. They had fought a lot and he had been hurt a few times by Elann. He knew Zulrav was watching that, and seeing as the god was ever attentive to his only stormwarden above all else, he was sure Zulrav had drawn his own opinions of the Benshira in front of Noah now. Having that thought cycle through his mind made Noah look at Elann with a sense of somberness.

Elann recounting what was professed in her dreams made Noah uneasy. He shifted, stuffing his hands into the hollow of his lap, denting the blanket that was strewn over him, until he felt the hardness of the floor beneath, softened by the blankets laid overtop it. He tilted his head at her confusion. The last vision he remembered her telling him about was the one with the house on the cusp of the forest. Seeing as he recalled seeing that house when he lived in Zeltiva, he was afraid of the trueness of her dream because she was confused and worried. Compelled, one of his hands rose from his lap and rested atop her thigh.

With his other hand he reached for the set aside cup of water and took a sip from it. The thumb of the hand on her thigh rubbed affectionately with light action. Bringing the cup down, his eyes went to her and he wondered if she had anything else to say on the matter. In his lulling look, he licked his lips. He had slept all that day and he was alert and rearing with energy which resided quietly inside of him.

Journey to the East

Noah rubbed the back of his hand across his mouth, the grease from the meat making his skin glisten before he rubbed that away with the palm of his other hand. Noah posed the question because he wondered how attentive his deity was to his bondmate. He knew that Zulrav had spared her life during the lightning strike which procured the stormgems, but he wondered if she only got favor with Zulrav because of her relation to Noah. The Kelvic figured it was the case; Elann was afraid of the things that Zulrav took the most pride in and the things that Noah found the most comfort in. He was amazed by the storms and accepted the wind’s flightiness and quickly changing emotion as it were. All his life he had been shaped in the worship of Zulrav subconsciously.

“Maybe,” Noah said with uncertainty when Elann asked for his confirmation. His brows quirked in interest as she said she asked for rain and a storm. The mention made him look to the flaps of the tent again. He would be able to tell if Elann’s plea was heard by Zulrav, but as it were he was inside.

“Makutsi is the goddess of water,” he told her, looking to her again. “They work together to make it rain. Zulrav just has the clouds and the lightning, thunder, and wind.

A part of him felt almost guilty for not taking a deep interest in Yahal. It was just his domain and the apparent laws attached to it clashed with Noah’s own ideals of both purity and faithfulness. It seemed to him that Yahal inhabited the civilized definitions for that terminology. With his Kelvic bond, there was no way he could be intentionally unfaithful to his bondmate, therefore another attached meaning was unnecessary. The definition of purity was too up in the air and seemingly convoluted for the Kelvic to wrap his head around. If it weren’t for Zulrav’s attitude lining up almost directly with Noah’s, the Kelvic doubted he would’ve been religious at all. He figured he would be like his father who adhered to no deity and didn’t care for them. He would, like Noah, listen to what was told to him of the deities, but the information would do little to pique the great wolf’s interest.

“Did you talk to Yahal too?” he asked since the god was on his mind already.