My Eyes Have Seen You (Ethan/Hadrian)

[Hadrian]

True to his word, he followed her inside, but his severe brows beetled in consternation, not understanding how she could imagine him leaving her. There was the world to see, hand in hand, and now his heart was full of stories that had to be shared. Her explanations made perfect sense, of course, but the sort of opaque sense that his mind glossed over and accepted without true examination. Of course, he acceded to her will, nodding and smiling. "You are too good to me," he said. Then he repeated her words back to her through his own filter. "The key will be there, at the sea with the ships and their burdens. I will recognize it for you. I will." His own body was swathed in shadow, clothes of a nighted color, but he too was naked before her, few things hidden from her regard. He could trust her absolutely and implicitly; what had he to hide? He smiled at her, nodding again, content and confident that he could do what need doing. "But I don't want to leave when evening comes," he informed her seriously, with all the gravity of a five year old explaining something of immense importance.

[Colombina]

Hadrian’s vow was taken with all the sincerity it was spoken with. “I know, Hadrian. But you will hear a voice beside you saying, ‘this is the path, walk in it’ and you will answer.” She slid into the halo of warmth around him, using the nearness to remind herself of the joy of the passing instance. She kissed the crook of his neck with both dearness and reverence. “While I have placed my heart in you alone, yours is divided.” Her hand gently pressed his sternum, as if able to feel both her heart and his inconstant one. “But I do not regret any gift,” she affirmed, “Nor do I begrudge you yours.” Returning to her purpose, she glided away, turning towards the door out. “Let us not talk of then,” She smiled broadly with a quick spark of suggestion, “When I am enraptured with the instant.” Hadrian would not remember quite how and when they exited, or what structures they passed to arrive where they were. It didn’t seem important. Everything was wound into the moment. The memory of the walk had been reduced to a feeling of brisk pleasure. They now stood at the mouth of the Zeltivan docks, but these docks were saturated with sunlight and devoid of any reminders of decay. His dream logic told him this was how they always were, at least when he was with Eve. Ahead of them were the masts of three ships. Their sails were like tapestries, lavishly colored and livened by human figures forever suspended in an instance of revelry or triumph. The scenes were a bit strange for their lack of grandiosity. Yes, the colors and workmanship were exquisite, but the stories they told were not of universal significance. They meant a great deal to Hadrian, but were not widely embraced. “What do you see, Hadrian?” Eve asked, peering towards the ships. “I cannot see as well as you, the tapestries are blurred. What tales do they tell?”

[Hadrian]

Hadrian's pupils dilated, then contracted to pinpoints as he watched scenes visible only to him play themselves out upon the sails of the ships, memories, stories, projections, and thoughts. His lips parted and his jaw relaxed as if he were in a trance, losing fine control of his body and its reactions. His hand rose, something impossibly thin coiled and shining around his hand and through his fingers, and when he relaxed his gentle grip, it floated toward those ships as if it would twine itself through the weave and weft of the sails. "Mmm," he murmured, then, "Mother died." He had told this story to someone else not so long ago. His brow furrowed, eyes on that faraway scene. The story went backward through their shared life, devolving back through his childhood, into the womb, and then shredded him into two distinct points no longer conjoined, a seed and an egg. "But she... she loved me. She wanted me. I was an act of love." He frowned again as the story became a series of symbols that mattered only to him. "I was in a wintry lake with gulls... And they built a bonfire, kissing on each other's souls, summoning me from out of the cold. I am a branch of a tree, a leaf on the wind... watch me soar." Blinking, he turned his eyes on her, the pupils finding a happy medium. His inveigled mind began to sharpen, to question, but it could not yet grasp what was grasping him. "Eve?"

[Colombina]

Eve followed Hadrian’s eyes to the sails only once. It was him she longed to watch, hungered to hear, for a moment he was as dear as the single point of light in worlds of darkness. He was all she had left of living things. But fully living things moved between the worlds in a way she could not. Her airs were soft, though. Full of patience, devoid of the ugly edges of thirst. She moved as if nothing and everything mattered simultaneously. And perhaps they did. "Today you are like that gull. Sea-bound and free." Her head perched on his shoulder for a warm instant before she danced behind him, carried away on glowing currents. When he said her name, she tilted her head and waited for a beat. It was brief enough for her to press on uninterrupted, but long enough to show she heard. “I want to see what it brought us.” She let her hand drift behind for a beat should Hadrian choose to catch it. The docks were empty, but it did not beg scrutiny. Even the air was luminous, enflaming every color to its purest hue. There were the sounds of sea: roars and slaps made velvety by the distance, expanding til they dissipated with a resigned hiss. The boats rocked and creaked comfortingly. Eve walked up a gangplank, following heartlines to their source: the cargo hold of the ship. This vessel was fat with riches, its corners glittering and smudging shadows with color reflected from stacks of fabric and glass. An overpowering smell of cloves and orange oil stung and warmed the tight space. Buried somewhere in the bounty was a box tied with yellow ribbon. “Hadrian,” Eve began gravely, “There’s something here I’d like you to find, but I cannot tell you what it is.” She smiled, but it was tight, frustrated by the restriction of her request. “Find it, find me.”

[Hadrian]

Hadrian took up Eve's hand and walked with her to the ship, moving to trail behind her up the narrow gangplank, though his hand never left hers. The treasures were beautiful to look at, but he felt no especial urge to take any of it. They were much like the sails and the air, the birds wheeling overhead and the woman whose hand he held. He looked to here, smiling, content. It wasn't until she inspired a passion in him by giving him an objective that he wanted to do more than while away the time with her while it lasted. He leaned in to kiss her cheek and nod before he let go of her hand to pore over gilt leather tomes, open casks of jewels and coin, run his fingers over scale armor made of some sort of burnished metal he could not recognize, its patina strange and wonderful. There was golden flatware, a scepter of inlaid ivory, baubles, and jewelry the which he thought would look particularly lovely upon Eve herself, but nothing that quite was Eve. When he glanced back to make sure she was still there, he always found her, smiled, and made some reassurance or another that he would find this thing, this mystery object, and bring it back to her. Then as he was looking away from her, he thought he caught a flash of her in his peripheral vision, but not where she was -- in another place! An optical illusion, perhaps, or a bit of magical trickery, some cantrip illusion or essence trapped with runes. Approaching a bookshelf, he began to move things out of the way as if he was sure he knew where the prize was. They moved almost like branches on an overgrown trail, pressing back against him, wanting to find their original shape and place. The damascened scabbard of a kingly sword should have tipped over, but it merely moved aside, clinging to Hadrian's wrist. Knick-knacks and other oddments skittered aside at his touch, but hurried back when the path was clear, and finally he pulled out a box of heavy brown card stock, varnished for strength and beauty, then tied with a yellow ribbon. It felt too heavy, but he knew Eve was inside. Hurrying back to her side, he held it out to her as an offering. "I have found it!" Eureka, indeed.

[Colombina]

Eve's hands wrapped around Hadrian's where they clasped the box. She smiled at him, but he could see the translucent edges where faint grief flickered. "And so you have." Her approval felt deep and wide, encompassing all the shades of feminine power. It sang the lover's melody and breathed the mother's steady hum. The box was unnaturally heavy. How much did a heart weigh? Finding courage again, Eve slowly asked, "Would you open it with me?" Like much of this morning, there was more to this hope than first heard. Fingers slipped under the ribbon pulling it away with tremors. Her breath was held as fingertips traced the box. Timid as a new bride, she finally moved with Hadrian to lift the lid. A bird. A glass bird nestled in fabric palest blue. It was a creature at rest with color pulling through its heart and gold dust under its skin. Tears and laughter at her silliness trickled over Eve's fanned fingers. "I'm sorry," she explained, "I know it’s a bit plain compared to the other treasures." She sighed and smiled, peacefully resigning herself to judgment. "But it is me." Her hand hesitated as it reached to touch Hadrian, but resumed its path with careful reverence. She timorously slipped her fingers through the short hair framing his face. Her mouth was pleased, but her eyes were bittersweet. She was remembering something dear that he had forgotten. He had forgotten many things she loved; he knew this with aching clarity. "Thank you, Hadrian." Her hand slipped away to fold over her heart. "Perhaps you will think to find me after the morning."

[Hadrian]

He thought the whole thing was rather splendid, the fine wrapping much like the gifts his mother would give to the important people of Syliras, her children included. The dainty bird was such a treasure, a heart, a person, and it was a present, too. Eve was giving him her heart, her self in some strange way he could not yet fathom, though in this dreamlike scene, he found he understood her without needing to know the mechanics of things. It was so peaceful here; there was no need to question everything as he normally did... He blinked, almost coming awake. The world dimmed for a moment and then sprang back with its too-bright color, its too-perfect details. "You're welcome," he said, vaguely confused and slightly troubled again. "I will remember you." The box was under his arm now, a heavy cloak having appeared to drape over his arm to obscure it, feathers patterned into the weave. Or they were real wings, perhaps, and he was meant to fly. "Eve." When he said her name, the box seemed to tremble against his ribcage, tickling his heart. "Thank you. I will remember you," he repeated. Somehow he knew she was leaving, even if he didn't understand. Momentous things, hearts, and he had hers. He could question it in the morning, as she said.

[Colombina]

"It has a heart too, Hadrian." Eve gently took the glass thing from its nest and held it up to the unsettlingly perfect light. "There," she smiled at a blurb of dull color in the bird. It was a bit of blood, but impossible to tell. "I once knew how to shape glass," memory made her falter, "Forever ago." She returned it to his keeping. "It must always be something with a bit of living. The keys, Hadrian." As Eve spoke, the world behind began to withdraw. Grand buildings, cobblestones, trees and ships floated upward in disparate pieces. Sundering from the center, they began to alter in hue and unravel into fine threads. Infinity was behind the curtain and filaments of color spirited towards an unknown center. Eve clasped Hadrian's face, and kissed him on the mouth. "Good Morning, Hadrian." Then even she began to float upward, her arms now bound in the threads of chavi. Hadrian stood on a curl of his own chavi as Zeltiva moldered away. His chavi was a stark silver at first glance, unvaried and cruel. Only when one pressed their face against it did the web of iridescence show, a sheen of aquatic blues and greens touched by rose. Knowing the beauty of his own chavi was no simple thing, but at least his eyes were attuned to its form. Another would had to have considered it at length and with innate mercy. How long had Eve contemplated this thread in the dark? "You are not a kind man, Hadrian Aelius," came the shaded voice. "She may have chosen one who prefers the dream over the heart." He was slipping from one chavi to another, remnants of each clinging to his forearms before slipping away. "Will you even recall her name when Kendall kisses you awake?" Nysel laughed low, sending ripples across the metallic lines of Hadrian's chavi. "But I give only opportunity, not edicts. Those are for rigid gods."

[Hadrian]

He kissed her back, neck craning to hold it as she began to pull away, but she wasn't pulling away. Eve rose. His eyes were wide as he followed her ascension, lips parted in awe. As the dreamscape faded, so too did the cloud around his mind. It had been a dream, and Eve... When he could see her no more, his eyes fell to the bird in his hands. He recognized it now; Sondra had given it to him in Ravok when he returned from wherever he had been. Was there some connection between the bird and the long blank in his memory? Who was Eve? He had her heart in his hands, and he still didn't know. He stood on energy, he realized. Even his body was not truly solid except that he believed it was. Had he been taken out? Had Alander Jin caught up with him and torn him from his body again? Or was this the chavena? The energy felt familiar, the bracing cold that covered hidden warmth. But his head swung around at the voice, and the presence of the dark-skinned man made him more certain this was where he thought it was. He tried to kneel, which was difficult in this medium. "Am I cruel, Dreamlord?" he asked, his voice quiet and questing. "I did not know what was happening. I'm still not sure what happened. I will remember Eve, I hope. I have the crystal bird with my body, so I will have the reminder. Though I suppose You know better what I will and will not remember." There on the threshold of revelation, he sensed a blockage in his chavi, something bright and powerful. He daren't touch it. He also sensed something that made him inordinately sad. "Kendall will not love me much longer, I think. But... thank you for the opportunity. I have always wondered what it would be like." But he looked back to the tall god of the unconscious. Gifts were rarely given for free.

[Colombina]

"And you will continue to wonder even after travelling. As long as there are living things, the roads here are endless." Nysel looked at Hadrian, and with his glancing appraisal came the terrible knowledge he could unwind the mage into so many floating threads, just like the false Zeltiva. Was this relentless curiosity a facet of kindness or cruelty? A child could slice open a hare to see its insides, yet a lover could whisper questions with all compassion. Nysel's dark hand reached out and clasped the mage on the shoulder. Under the god's fingers, Hadrian's flesh stretched in a painful dissipation then knit itself anew with a fiercely alien design stretched over it. The mark was a terrible beauty that baffled the eyes. And now Hadrian had been given a new lens with which to magnify the world. He could look back on this day and either mark it as the moment he ceased to know joy, or the day he began to understand its worth. With much knowledge was much sorrow, yet knowledge was light in the dark. Just as Nysel had said, the paths were infinite. Nysel gave no guidance before being drawn into the hidden places again, only, as promised, opportunity. When Hadrian awoke, the fractal was still there, heavy on his shoulder.

The XP Wand Is Waved! Thanks again for letting me hijack this thread, guys! I miss dear Ken, but since she is onto greener pastures I am awarding only Ethan and Hadrian. I will say I enjoyed reading the portion before I came in, something wonderfully dear about it. Deep down, so deep down it's not quite there, I'm a bit of a softie Ethan's Loot 2 XP Observation 1 XP Wilderness Survival (You're flying around and camping and stuff...) Lore of General Terrain of Northern Reaches Hadrian's Loot 3 XP Observation 1 XP Wilderness Survival (Body heat is useful in a pinch. Survival skill learned!) 1 XP Investigation (Finding the glass bird) Lore of Nysel's Appearance Lore of the key to Eve's Chavi Lore of Appearance of the Chavena Lore of How Keys to Chavi Work With a First Mark MISC. A single mark from Nysel Colombina is pleased.