Illumin0sity

Journey to the East

The fact that it was Caesarion in his dream meant leagues more to him than anything else. If it had been another, more random person, he may not have felt as bad but the guilt would’ve resided within him anyway. It wouldn’t have been unsurprising if Elann didn’t understand the gravity felt in Noah’s actions in his dream. Already she didn’t understand the bond in full and couldn’t understand what he felt when he peered at it, how he saw the scar on it from the last time it had broken. The scar was far down the strand because it had grown immensely since being connected with Elann, it had repaired itself, but the scar held parts of Noah that had yet to be rebirthed into the fullness of his bond.

Caesarion was more than Noah’s bondmate and the man once held the same position as Elann, as Noah’s friend and lover. They had not married - and it was doubtful they would’ve ever married or been able to be married - but they were married due to the bond and it was all Noah needed, as Elann knew by now. Noah’s first love still held many parts of him and it was doubtful he waited long enough before giving himself to Elann, opening himself up vulnerably before she did so for him. To Elann’s dismal, Caesarion was the first to make Noah feel passionate in the way that lovemaking brought and it was done without their bond. The bond was created in the passion and was reinforced by it.

Elann pet his hair, asking him questions, of which she answered herself. Then she went into the definition of betrayal, saying Yahal forbid it. Noah didn’t need to be told a god forbid it, he himself forbid it. There were many things that Yahal allowed or forbade that Noah already followed in his own way, thusly not needing another being he had never seen or interacted with to tell him new definitions. Despite that, she reaffirmed he didn’t betray her. Noah tried to see the meaning behind her argument beneath the words he didn’t agree with and found enough of a sliver to keep his head level.

On the inside, it was too murky to recognize reason or understand his crying in comparison to hers. Hers was seemingly brought on whenever they fought, making it appear as if he was the cause. There were two times she cried tears of joy, once when he did something before their marriage and then the day of their marriage. Any other crying had been the effect of a fight and he felt compelled to cease it - it explained why he was concerned over her first bout of tears of joy, they didn’t make sense.

Noah took a sputtering breath and nodded at her requests. Sniffling, he rubbed the wetness from his eyes and cooled down. The dream was over and the aftereffects were fading. Caesarion was no longer in his life and he was with Elann; a dream couldn’t dictate what he would do in real life and shouldn’t have made him feel as if he betrayed Elann, that was what he drew from Elann’s words. Whether that was right or not, he didn’t know.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ll stop crying.”

Blinking, he gave his eyes a final wipe to be rid of the tears that welled and only left glistening whites. His chest hurt as did his throat, the knot there immense and stiff. Aside from emotionally, the way crying made him feel physically wasn’t welcome. The way intense emotions made him feel in general weren’t welcome. They always had side effects that felt as if they left his body exhausted and ravaged, crying most of all.

Noah pulled back, parting enough to let his hands find the loose fabric of Elann’s dress. His head looked at his playing fingers, angled downwards as he almost nervously recovered from himself.

Chaos is Freedom [with Noah]

---

Kenash was a place Noah never thought he’d be. He’d heard the stories of slaves and how Kelvics were prized possessions, slaves. Even though he was Kelvic, even though he sought to bind himself to another and ultimately be a human in the eyes of his bondmate, Noah never wanted to be a slave. Slavery was something his mother had come from in Ravok, something his mother had escaped from thanks to her late bondmate. Noah was born free in Zeltiva and now he was in the slave city of Kenash under the guise of being a close friend to one of the Dynast Lorak’s children, Verena Lorak.

Verena was a young woman, someone with a kind heart, a heart he never thought he’d find in Kenash. He had thought coming to the slave’s city was a mistake but he stumbled into Verena and was shown kindness by her. He repaid her kindness by acting as a devoted friend and companion. He had spent many weeks with the Loraks, gotten to know them on personal levels but nothing as deep as what him and Verena had together. She was not his bondmate - he couldn’t fathom letting another into his heart after two failed bonds - but she was a dear friend. Like a bondmate, he would do anything for her and loved her in the way he knew how.

After nursing him back to health, Verena harbored him until he attained the status of a freeborn despite being a Kelvic. He was born outside of the city and was a friend to one of the powerful families, thus freeborn status was granted to him with relative ease. The only constraint and difficulty was time and in that time Verena had housed him. Still housing him today, Noah knew of the highborn suburbs and had come to know them like the back of his hand. Often he went with Verena to visit the main of the city, to accompany her on any walking excursion she may fancy. He was but another member of her entourage with enough credibility by relation alone to be seen with some fair respect himself.

The reason Noah came to Kenash was because he was fleeing Syliras, the oppressive castle city which held his most recent bondmate, Elann. She was a love of his as well, and he still held love for her in his heart. They split because of their religious differences. Yahal, her patron deity, held ideals Noah didn’t readily bind himself to. Elann saw it as resistance, an unwillingness for him to change, but it wasn’t that. Purity and faithfulness were already words which held concrete meaning in the Kelvic’s mind. He didn’t need a deity, a fabled man, to tell him to remain ‘pure’ and faithful to his bondmate. Elann was granted his bond, it was already a given he wouldn’t lie with another or lay his eyes upon another. He was animally-minded, the wild was his home and domain, there was no such thing as social purity there.

Elann didn’t understand, and so they fought and fought until neither could take it any longer. Being an eagle, being an avian, he fled and flew as far as the winds would carry him. As he flew with his heart heavy in his chest, he realized all the harm that came to him while he was with Elann as a bondmate, lover, and friend. With the heaviness in mind, the mindful dagger slashed through their bond, ripping him free but wrenching his heart at the same time. He could only imagine how Elann felt as he flew far, far away, but he couldn’t care any longer. He had to survive, he had to live without her because he was going to die - literally or figuratively - with her. As said, the wild was his domain, and thus survival drove him away.

Upon arriving in Kenash, he stayed incognito as an eagle for a week’s time before suffering a broken wing at the hand of mischievous children, children who were upset because the pretty bird wouldn’t play with them. Verena found him, nursed him to help, and acted as his representation for freeborn status. Now, a handful of months later, he was enjoying a friendship with Verena and only she, and was also enjoying living in the lap of what was luxury. He was but a pampered friend to the youthful beauty of the Lorak family.

On this day, Noah walked alone on the lengthy road on the edge of Kenash. There was a home he had seen many times before from the distance but had never been too. It was able to be viewed from the street just before the Lorak’s manor. It wasn’t often he was alone since Verena was something of a celebrity in Kenash’s high society. He missed his solitude though, often seeking it in the room provided for him in the manor. He could only take being cooped up in the house for so long before he started going stir crazy though, and so he snuck away when Verena was sleeping the last night’s celebration away.

He was simply dressed for a near-royal, donned in high quality pants, leather boots with a nice linen shirt beneath his pale golden, sleeveless doublet. On his wrists were two leather guards and at his waist was a sheath for the eagle’s-head dagger he carried. He didn’t fear being mugged or being assaulted, knowing he could very well survive if such a thing were to happen. On his neck was a rounded stone the size of the palm’s heart and it swirled with the imagery of a storm, clouds darkened and flashing with lightning being swept around by heavy winds - his deity, Zulrav, had granted him two blessings and he had trained them well.

The blessings weren’t the only thing he trained. His body had been tuned, the musculature on his still lithe frame was developed and there was a certain solidity to him as he treked over the road, his hand on the hilt of his dagger, resting, as he walked.

Journey to the East

Noah shook his head at her still. He didn’t want his dream discounted as ‘just a bad dream’ or be told that it was meaningless. To him, it meant everything, it meant a great deal. As he loved Caesarion, and still did in his heart somewhere, he loved Elann and to witness them both walk away and to miss their words because of his senses failing him, senses he cherished so dearly, felt as if he was missing something as well. With both of them, he couldn’t hear their words and couldn’t see their true forms. Whatever it meant, the tacit symbols were jarring to him.

Elann’s body being on his was comforting to the Kelvic. Her petting, emotions, and gentle voice, even if they didn’t say the words he wanted to hear, were comforting. He felt her pull away and felt the hand on his hot head. Pressing, he looked up and met her eyes. She reassured him she was there, smiling in his face of despair. His already pained faced deepened in the opposite intended reaction. Having an adverse reaction to her flowing love, playfulness, and nudging, he felt undeserving given his actions in the nightmare preceding this one.

“In my dreams, I betrayed you,” he confessed pitifully. “I was with him after our fight and… and…” The Kelvic’s words failed him as his throat caught. The surge of emotion and the welling in his chest caught him off guard. He swallowed over the lump and took a sputtering breath. “We did things that I’m only supposed to do with you. I didn’t stop myself… it kept going until I woke up.”

He looked at her with his burning eyes, feeling a tear spill over and stroll down his cheek. His chest was tight again and it ached, not only because of the need to fold and cry under his overwhelming sense of guilt, but because his wounds were irritated by the upheaval is lungs were doing against the stitches, expanding, contracting, and shuddering with breaths.

Journey to the East

Continuously being shushed and soothed, the Kelvic aided her in sitting him up. Sitting, he took the water and downed it in a few gulps. He shook his head at her offerance of tea, shook his head at her telling him he was in pain. He didn’t want even a little bit. Humming is disapproval of her offers, he closed his eyes and leaned into her, placing his head on her shoulder while his arms wrapped about her body tightly. Her words came to denote how horrible his dream sounded, asking for clarification on the lightning bit at the same time.

“No,” he said correcting himself and her, “it looked like you were struck by lightning but the wind swept you away first.” He swallowed and took a breath. “I was flying and then I saw two people on the ground. I couldn’t see who they were until I came down and, as I landed, after I shifted, the grass wrapped around my legs and I couldn’t move. They were two blobbing shadows and then they turned into you and Caesarion, they took on your shape. Then, you two started talking but I couldn’t hear you - I couldn’t hear anything! You two walked away after that. The wind was hurting me and the clouds were so black. The lightning hurt to look at and then the wind came and cut at my back, where I’m hurt now, and then you two were gone. Lightning struck where you two stood and then I woke up.”

It was horroring because Caesarion had essentially walked away from him. In his dream Elann had walked away with Caesarion and it communicated to Noah that she was walking away too, that he would lose her as well. It was terrifying because he already had lost one bondmate whom he thought he would have forever, and the thought of losing another was heart-wrenching. At the thought, at the recollection, he hugged her all the more.

“You can’t leave too,” he urged in a whisper.

Journey to the East

Even in Noah’s thinness when they met for the first time, before any training and before any weight had been added by Elann’s food, he had already been a strong individual, surprisingly so. It was to be expected of a predator who had to secure a kill quickly before its prey got away or a struggle didn’t draw too much attention from another predator of the terrestrial kind.

Elann’s request for him to lay and calm was received and he lied there underneath her as she draped herself over him. What she was doing was what he needed; he needed the gentle shushing and the calming caresses, stilling his quickly pattering heart. His chest finally came under its usual, slow rhythm and his skin cooled all the more from the sweat. Upon waking up he was on fire, having been baked under the fur blanket by his own heat, sweat, and a heart that was throwing itself into his breastplate mercilessly. Now, he was calming, oblivious to Elann’s power being used on him.

The question came and was answered by hesitation at first. Noah wasn’t one to have night terrors, let alone dream enough to remember them. When he did dream though, he almost always knew what he was dreaming of, if it was important enough.

“You,” he answered thirstily. “You and Caesarion. I couldn’t see your faces… my legs were stuck in the grass… the wind hurt me… I couldn’t hear what you were saying… you walked away with him… struck by lightning, you two...”

It was the gist of his dream. As he recounted it, his hand slipped to her above him and grasped at the fabric of her dress again in a hold, much lighter and less forceful than before.

“Water,” he requested, swallowing dryly again.

Journey to the East

The confusion was apparent in Elann’s voice. The question was random and asked without any build up. He had just woken up and was overwhelming himself with his own emotions. Noah answered Elann’s question with a hesitant nod. The petting in his hair made him recognize she was real and present and there for him. She was enough to calm him and the calm that overtook him was far faster than the calms Alena or Aimee managed to bring. It was strong, brought on by the love in her eyes and the worry in their bond.

Calming, his eyes looked around her and into the room, his head turning to help in the action. The daylight was outside and the birds weren’t chattering in their early morning voices. He figured it was approaching the tenth or eleventh bell, but he couldn’t be sure until he was outside. He looked back to Elann, meeting her gaze and releasing his hold on her dress. His eyes went to the place where he had grabbed ahold of her and he saw the wrinkled and bunched up fabric.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “I didn’t mean to pull you like that. I was scared.”

He swallowed dryly, looking up at her still. “I love you,” he told her, the words said aloud so that he could hear them with her.

Journey to the East

Waking up was just as bad as sleeping it felt. He had reached out for Elann but she wasn’t there. On his back, settling, he remembered the darkness of his previous nightmare and how only Caesarion was there. The acts done in the dream were supposed to bring him joy, pleasure, and fulfillment but Caesarion wasn’t his bondmate, wasn’t his love any longer, and thus the entire dream, Noah’s entire subconscious, felt like the steepest betrayal of Elann’s kindly given trust. It was a betrayal done unto himself as well because he couldn’t fathom giving himself pleasurably to anyone else.

The days since the last nightmare were filled with reconsideration and meditation in order to affirm that his loyalty to Elann didn’t waver. Sadly though, he realized the last time he had given himself in utter pleasure to another was to Caesarion. Noah came to know his heart was still grasped by the man whom had abandoned the Kelvic. Being taken by the other man was always a pleasurable experience, Noah’s passions always flowed and his emotions had been as rolling and as immense as Elann’s were. The feelings weren’t utterly foreign to him, he realized.

Noah recognized he unintentionally lied to Elann and it compounded atop already depressing feelings of deepseated guilt. Now he could comprehend his intensely adverse reactions to Elann pressing sexual passion on him: his passion was still possessed by another. Subconsciously he didn’t want to face the truth, the truth of knowing Elann wanted what Caesarion got so easily from him. It wasn’t to say he innately thought Caesarion attractive either. It was the man’s personality which drew Noah to him, the same as Elann, but their sex caused the creation of their bond. The bond was birthed in burning passions toiling with the deep emotions of attachment, love, and more. From the start, their bond had been hotly forged and cooled to rival steel’s strength.

Elann’s voice came as she appeared out of the corner of his sight. Noah’s hand went to clutch the fabric of her dress as she shushed him, petting over him to calm his quickly paced heart. Her usual concern and worry trickled instead of flooded, making it harder to cling to the genuineness of her overall woe for his wellbeing. He felt her beneath the dress, knew she was real, but she was holding back the surging feelings he had grown accustomed to feeling, even if they did shock his system momentarily.

Noah’s bond answered her question, twanging as a pang of longing came over it. He grasped her dress all the more and pulled, forsaking fabric, much like she yanked on their bond from time to time.

“Are you upset with me?” he spat immediately after he tugged at her.

It was perhaps an entirely baseless question given what was on Elann’s mind or what she made of it, but it was asked with the desperation for an answer. In his mind he saw Elann walking away in her shadowy form, watching her say words he couldn’t hear, and she was standing beside the bondmate who had abandoned him. He was out of the nightmare but until reality was cemented with her answer, her touch, breath, and words, he was mightily terrified.

His bond was open and it was gripped in his guilt. Their bond had not been forged in the fires of passion, it had been strung in a downpour of somberness. Forlornly it was crafted by the both of them, him promising to save her from the sadness of being disowned. It was his vow to her and in the bond several more promises, oaths, and vows were given. In his mind he had broken many of them with his dreams and inactions.

Journey to the East

---

What Noah sought was to be for the moment, for his weakness of the now, and to show her how he would love her. Intentionally, he wasn’t asking her to forsake what she was, her bubbliness, her happiness, just to know that it was overwhelming to him at times. He had no idea if it was being miscommunicated, but based on how Elann didn’t seek to speak in his creeping silence in every way, he had no way of knowing what she was thinking inside her head. He felt her love and felt her presence through the bond and it was enough to keep him from pulling away from her. He was content with the moment and far too drained to gently request anything else.

Noah took her in to sleep and fell asleep quickly once they were settled. In his mental fatigue, the Kelvic was swept away into a deep sleep plagued by dreams he wasn’t used to having. He dreamt of flying, dreamt of the clouds and the clear skies that were overtaken by the greatness of his god. Flying, below him was a vast open meadow. In the high grass were two figures, shadows he couldn't’ discern from above. He came down, gliding to come to the ground. He shifted but his bright cloud of magic didn’t appear. His feet hit ground and he took steps towards the blobs of shadows and as he stepped his legs were tangled in in the grasses and he was rooted.

The shadows began to form into figures but before they formed Noah felt an intense yearning towards the both of them. He could see clearly but was blind to the identities of the shadows until the figures began to take shape. There was an immense amount of familiarity with both figures and as one formed into a man and the other into that of a short woman, he began to understand. The one to his left was Elann and the one to his right was Caesarion. The man had been on his mind for the past few days following the latest argument between Noah and Elann, thus it made partial sense for the man to be there but the Kelvic was still thrown into confusion.

As he stood, rooted and immobile, the skies that were dotted with clouds were taken over by an immediate overcast, the greys darkening to the point of near blackness and only lightning striking in the distance lit the area around and above. The ground was overtaken by the shadow of the clouds, any celestial body of stars or the moon was totally oppressed and the shadows were becoming harder still to see. Their bodies were solid but the forms remained the same. Magically, the bodies rippled with tendrils of darkened energy that floated up to dissipate into the air.

Nude, it was the first time Noah felt as if he was vulnerable in his nakedness. The winds that swept over the plain didn’t make the grass bend but instead bit into his bare skin. He was the only one affected by the winds he often called friend and there was fear in him because of it. The mouths of the shadows opened as his ears failed him. The rushing winds became nothing but sensations felt on his skin and the shadows spoke words he couldn’t hear. He couldn’t even read the darkened lips. Both of them spoke in a way that denoted they were saying the same thing.

Deafened and unable to move, the Kelvic looked up at the blackened clouds and saw the lightning rivet through the disdaining bodies above. The thunder rumbled so heavily he felt the ground shake beneath his feet and his bones rattle in his chest. Looking down, he found the shadows again and they both looked at him ominously. They had finished talking and now they stared as the sky battered itself with lightning and thunder. When it ceased, the rumbling stopped, they turned and walked from him. The winds surged behind him and cut into his back. Rushing, the winds swept away the shadows. Lightning struck where they once stood, dangerously close to him, and he was ripped from his dream.

Snapping awake, the Kelvic rolled onto his back abruptly, arching it in discomfort as he pressed against his wound. Noah’s hand came over his chest, his heart being felt as it thudded against the bone inside and his chest, the chest which heaved as the lungs inside gasped for breath. The film of sweat that was on him cooled as his body was exposed to the open air and he was gripped by a chill that made his teeth chatter. His eyes, darting to regain his whereabouts, calmed as he noted the light outside the tent, the birds chirping somberly to share their sorrow with those who lost their family members in last night’s raid.

The abrupt pain in his back made him audibly whince and seeth between clenched teeth, and it was a while before he delicately came back down to lie flat.

Journey to the East

Despite his experimentation, his pushing, she didn’t break and it was commendable because he expected her to by this point of his curious and physical examination of her body. It was as she thought, he wanted to see and feel him without words, and she was doing so, he hoped. He didn’t know how well the lesson would be cemented within Elann given there was no objective clearly given to her before he started. The only instruction he had given her was to be slow and calm. He wasn’t seeking to torment her and force her into what she felt was wrong, but the object was to teach and to strengthen the bond shared between them on an emotional level, disregarding the spiritual cord between their hearts.

Elann closed her eyes to him as he went over her Cheva mark. He met them when they reopened. With her hand over his torso, he pressed against it and pecked her on the lips once more. It was a signal of the end as he withdrew his hand from her, placing it on the hand she had on him. He clutched the back of hers in his hand, moving it to rest in the tiny space between them. As he set their hands down the emotion in his bond began to waver and fade, taking back to its usual self of quiet buzzing, the ache of his body becoming more apparent. In the lasting moments of his test of her, he hid himself away from her again because of the ache returning to him consciously as well.

Noah’s heart lessened in its thud and his eyes weren’t as perceptive as they had grown to be in the creeping moment. About himself, he learned what on her physically attracted him to her and it was all the things that reminded him of Zeltiva. He supposed they were always there, always plain to see, he simply hadn’t made the connection yet until this night. Now the connection had been made, and now he could accurately show how he desired her as opposed to how she desired him, in the way she wanted him to desire her too.

The bass-filled feelings gave way to clear skies in his heart and he took a final breath to recollect himself a final time. Words alone couldn’t say how he was impacted by her willingness to see him, but it was a great amount. So great, in fact, he hoped it would remain. Knowing how the world was and how Elann could be, all could change again in the next day or the next week, and so he waited. His patience played into his unforgiving nature because once he saw the patterns of a creature, a creature like Elann, he only waited until they made the same mistake again. Elann had fallen into those patterns and now he was waiting for her to slip up. He wouldn’t pounce, capitalizing on her misstep, he would quietly reside in his hurt and disappointment.

Noah looked at their hands, letting his eyes fall from Elann’s to view the last of the physical touch between them. He waited for her to speak, thinking she would because he wasn’t. The moment was over, his feelings had fallen and been hid away per his choice. He trusted she would love him in his way and wouldn’t press him to love her in the way she wanted him to. His love couldn’t be shaped because it wasn’t hers, it was his. Noah sought for her to respect that.

Journey to the East

Elann listened to all Noah was giving off, heeded his words, and curbed her heightening sensations because it wasn’t what he sought. It wasn’t necessarily the point to make love in the instance, but to show her just how physically and emotionally he could be enthralled with her. He knew he was desired by her; she commented on his appearance, commented on his seemingly romantic gestures, and commented on how she saw the affection in all he did for her, no matter how small. He was showing patience with her here, pulling back, correcting, and then observing the changes as she made them to fit the moment he wanted. It was a great flip from the many months where he was in her shoes. This was but one instance, one moment, compared to the others. It would act as a glimpse of what he hoped would come.

Noah was experimenting as well, seeing just how far he could push his lover to lock down her driving emotions in order to keep the delicate peace at play. He reached forth and rested his hand back in the slope of her waist and played along it. In the next moment his hand was moving to direct her, placing it over his chest and then sliding it over to his ribcage, letting her feel the musculature and the air fill his chest with each breath. He hoped she would play along so he could continue on. Aside from watching where on his body he put her hand his eye contact was constant and unbreaking. His breath didn’t waver from the way it was taken, deep and slow. Inside his chest his heart was thudding with force but wasn’t pattering in the way passion often caused it to.

The Kelvic called upon the lesson of her other erogenous zones and slid his hand from her waist between her breasts and over her neck, playing briefly over the skin of her throat because he knew how sensitive and vulnerable it was. His final destination was just behind her jaw and ear, the place where her Cheva mark presided as a visual marker for them belonging to one another. The backs of his fingers grazed over the area just as he gazed into her eyes. If words or actions didn’t tell of his devotion to her, then the mark would forever be a symbol of his vow, his adherence. As he had said at the altar, he would love her so long as the earth was beneath their feet and the stars in the sky, so long as breath filled their lungs, and so long as the seasons continued to pass on and on.

Noah knew he was acting provocatively, teasing her passions as if she wasn’t going through enough to keep herself tame, but it was all a test. He wouldn’t be unforgiving here, understanding what he was doing. Already she had passed what mattered, she had showed him she could do something for him without pressing or demanding a wish for herself. Now, he was just upping the ante and fishing for another series of reactions. He was hyperaware of her and it was shown by just how big his eyes were, as if he was watching a doe squirm as he circled overhead. He didn’t kiss her again, wanting to see how she would behave with his eyes open.