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[Caelum]

30 Winter 514 AV The sun was high in the heavens over Cyphrus, so high that it threw the shadows of tree limbs like long, skeletal fingers across the snow. A few of them broke against the Sanctuary wall and left the remains of their fall foliage in the far end of the gardens. A small konti child played there, trundling through the snow in tall, fur lined boots and a thick, woolen dress. She wore a heavy shawl over her shoulders that knotted in the front and boasted of more colors than her father's herb garden in riotous spring. Clutched in her little hands was a bouquet of mottled maple leaves and sharp scented pine needles. She collected more interestingly shaped and colored items to add to her design as she walked, mouth set with concentration. Eventually, summer sky eyes looked up to land upon Adrien who labored at the opposite end of the kitchen garden near her the beginning rows of Caelum's precious herb plants. It was a wide and occasionally rare array, many of the bushes and still miniature trees covered in thick burlap against the cold and still more cut down almost to their roots to weather the cold. Yet there were some of the plants that fared the cold well, even thrived in them, though none of the climbing vines came in that particularly hardy variety. It appeared to Lillian as though Adrien was repairing one of the wooden trellises. For a long while, the tiny seer watched this, holding herself silent and still. Now and again she would twirl the mangled bouqet in her hands about and steal glances at the door to the healing clinic behind which she knew her father labored. He had taken the morning off from Alements in town in order to put in some time with some of the Kavala's animal patients and free the Sanctuary's mistress up of some of her chores for the day. This was a relatively common occurrence. The ethaefal did more than just live at the Sanctuary. He was an active participant in the chores and miniature culture of the place and seemed to have locked in his head a dauntingly vast horde of knowledge. It lent him to the healing clinic, obviously, but he also did exceptional work with the horses and could work a garden and offer a strong shoulder to manual labor. For now, he was where he was best --- in his role as a physician. Eventually, Lillian tromped her way through the snow, braided pigtails bouncing down her back, to stand behind the kelvic rhino. A pair of hulking crows circled one another in a narrowing gyre above. "What are you doing?" She asked, little bright voice almost loud in the otherwise quiet day. "My Daddy says you're brewing. What's brewing and how do you do it?

[Adrien Dair]

30th, Winter. 514 AV

The snow made the Rhino's work harder and more annoying. The frost biting at the exposed flesh of his hands and his face. His jacket wrapped tightly around his body and the leather gloves he should have been wearing were tucked into his pocket. He was frustrated, annoyed and full of angst towards the world and he really could not tell anyone why. There was just something that was bothering him, ticking at his nerves. He sighed loudly as he smacked a nail into one of the boards, attaching it to one of the support beams. It was tedious work, a small project that needed to be done that he was asked to do and one he would not refuse but he still wished to be doing something else. Practicing his strikes, or his harp even just laying in bed hidden from the world.

The Rhino let the hammer hang in his hand by his side as he looked over the work. Pushing down with a little pressure to see if it would hold and once he was done he stuck it back in the ground and turned to walk towards another one when he heard a tiny voice coming from the snow. He looked down to see the lovely daughter of Caelum, the one touched by the goddess Avalis. He knelt down to be on her level and chuckled at her question. He looked at the door that Caelum was hidden behind and then shook his head and smiled there was something about the children of the Sanctuary that made him happier. "Well little one brewing is... when someone is upset or frustrated. When they aren't in the a good mood and they just want to hide from the world" he said.

"Are you enjoying the snow?" he asked. He remembered watching Tasi charging through the snow and kicking it up everywhere. He enjoyed watching the free spirited child enjoy the cold wetness that fell from the clouds. He looked into her hands to see the bundle of leaves and straw that she held. "Oh what are you making?" he asked. The mark shone upon the child's face, the same goddess that his friend Aoren was marked by. He sighed, Kavala and Aoren had both been marked by their gods and so had this child but Adrien had not. He felt that he had abandoned his goddess within the last season and everything that had happened. He looked down into the snow and shook his head, his heart feeling empty and yet heavy as he knelt their with the child.

Adrien Dair

[Caelum]

"This is my bucket," Lillian announced, and she thrust out the bouquet of last seasons leaves so that Adrien could sniff at them. They smelled of autumn and pine and the shed skin of a whole, hazy season that had stretched too long across the inhabitants of RIverfall. Curious eyes continued to make their study of the kelvic rhino, quite as if he was a piece of a much larger puzzle she spent all of her days attempting to resolve. "Why are you hiding? The world likes you." A shy little smile stole across her mouth, hesitant but free. The front door of the Healing Clinic swung open in revelation of Lillian's father. The ethaefal slumped casually on the threshold, a strong shoulder propping against the door frame. A clean rag was being used to dry his hands and the season had shifted the intense coloring of him from autumns blood and gold to winter green. Pine and copper sluiced through his horns and the tousle of his hair had dulled into a pale brown. His eyes, however, they remained the same and they narrowed thoughtfully on the small figure of his daughter and the man who crouched before her in the snow. "Lils," he called. "It's time to come in. You've been out in the cold too long." "But Daddy --" Lillian began, fist full of fall leaves wilting. "But Lily," he retorted, causing an eruption of giggles from the toddler. A smile tucked itself into one corner of Caelum's mouth. "C'mon. Get in here." He paused and considered Adrien. "You too. I've made tea and there's enough for you. I guess. If you want some." It was probably as good of an invitation as Adrien was likely to receive from the physician. "Let's go!" Lillian encouraged and the konti proceeded to pounce on Adrien in an attempt to actually push him toward the door of the healing clinic. Her father observed this with an expression of faint amusement. Lillian, of course, he adored. It was growing increasingly more clear that he only tolerated Adrien.

[Adrien Dair]

30th

The child shoved the 'bucket' of random leaves and straw into his face. Causing Adrien to take a long breaths worth of the smell into his nostrils. He wrinkled his nose and then sneezed, falling backwards into the snow. He blinked looking up at Lillian and wiped his nose with his arm. "The world may like me, but it has a funny way of showing it. I have not been connected with my Goddess lately, and I fell like I have withdrawn into a shell." he said, his mind wondering why he was confessing to a child. Even one marked by a Goddess like Lillian was. But his thoughts were thrown off as the door to the clinic flung open. His gaze turned to see the sparkling man that was Lillians father and Kavala's friend. His eyes wandered along the body of the man. Feeling his gaze returning onto Adrien. Judging him like his presence was an insult to the Sanctuary.

He was invited in for tea, even though it was not much of an invitation but the Rhino was used to it. He would have shrugged it off if it wasn't for the little child that had jumped on him telling him to go. He stood up, making sure to hold onto Lillian as he stood, raising her into the sky. He gently placed her back down into the snow and proceeded to follow her into the clinic. He kept his face straight and stone like. His eyes looking around the building that he did not visit unless he was with Kavala or frankly had to. The feeling gave him the shivers and made him shake before he stepped past Lillian and tried to stand off to the side. A task that was hard for Adrien who was used to his much bigger body.

"Thank you" he said looking towards Caelum. He had gotten the feeling that he got from a lot of the Akalak's and their children of the past. Being judged silently like the parents did. The eths presence and reputation had been built up in the Sanctuary long before the Kelvic had arrived. He had more history with Kavala then the Rhino probably ever would and even now, standing in the Sanctuary ground's he felt as if he was far less then the horned man that stood before him. His eyes did not leave Caelum for a long while, studying him and waiting for some sign of proof the his suspicions were correct and the man was looking for more of a reason to hate him.

Adrien Dair

[Caelum]

When Adrien relented to her demands to join them, Lillian clapped her little hands together and rushed ahead. She all but flew up the stoop to the healing clinic and was caught under her arms by Caelum who swung her up into his own. The motion was fluid and easy, the clear product of what was now long habit. Since Caelum and Kavala had rescued the toddler from a life of little love and neglect, she had turned to the ethaefal first love, safety, and reassurance. As Adrien watched, father and daughter enjoyed a brief conversation in the more natural, swooping language of the Drykas people – Pavi. Caelum had emerged from the sea with the words of the grasslands resting on his tongue and dancing through his hands. Though initially raised by Common language speakers, Lillian had spent her first age of talking in Endrykas and it was the language in which she and Caelum had first greeted one another. It was therefore their language, the words and motions that had helped a relationship and eventually a deep and fierce bond to form. Lillian's bright blue eyes flashed over to Adrien as she spread her fingers with a soft series of words that tilted up at the end like a question. A set of ancient, citrine eyes followed, the flicker of irritation in them easing. "She says you are like a snail," Calum explained in common. "She wants to know what goddess it would take to tempt you out of your shell." He tilted his head in a curt but still graceful invitation for the kelvic to follow as he turned, his daughter in his arms, to lead the way through the clinic's receiving room and into the back hall. "Do you like Ava? I like Ava," Lillian chattered brightly back at Adrien, big eye and little nose peeking out from above the rise of her father's shoulder. By "Ava" she referred to Avalis, because she was small and did not know better -- or perhaps she knew better than all. "And Syna and Laviku. And Rhaus! I want to meet Rhaus. Have you ever met Rhaus? I want to play him a song on my lute." They entered one of the examination rooms. On the table sat a small wooden boxed stuffed with soft, clean rags upon which a young mockbird rested, hiding its head under its wings. It did not stir as they arrived. The ethaefal moved through his sun's light to the counter where a tea kettle steeped atop an still warm brazier. "How do you take your tea?" Caelum asked. The words at least were polite. Lillian he sat down on the counter to see to the tea.

[Adrien Dair]

Date

The Kelvic watched the child run off, rushing up the stairs and into the arms of her awaiting father. The real relationship between the two was unknown to him. He had not bothered to ask Kavala or even Caelum himself. The man had felt a distance between him and the horned man. One that probably could have been overcome with an effort from both sides. An effort the Rhino had made no attempt to do. The history between Caelum and Kavala had peeked his interest, but Adrien was not sure he had a way to ask ether of them about it or if he even had the right.

The movement of their hands and the strange tongue that rolled from their lips surprised Adrien. He had heard the tongue spoken by the people of the Sea of Grass. Visitors and traders in the markets and streets of Riverfall. He had spoken with a few of them in passing. Nothing but tales of deep within the Sea of Grass. An adventure he had yet to take. Though one that could be possible in the coming years. Adrien shook his head when he noticed that the little one turned her attention back to him and was saying something with her hands. A motion that he did not understand. His eyes turned to Caelum as if to clue him in that he did not understand.

As if he understood even before the man asked Caelum was speaking, deciphering the little girls code. Adrien blushed slightly, his cheeks turning a faint red, as he noticed his own silence. "Ah no Goddess really. I do not know the language that you are speaking, and didn't want to interrupt." he nodded at his answer. Hoping that it would please Lillian enough. Adrien took the invitation and followed behind Caelum and his daughter.

The bright eyed child peering over her fathers shoulder caused Adrien to chuckle a bit. He shook his head with a soft smile at her initial question. He was delighted at the simple fact that Lillian spoke of the Goddess and God's in such a simple and friendly way. Almost as if they were not powerful and judging beings of another world, but just something else that had yet to be fully understood. The innocence of a child that did not show fear in speaking of the Goddess's she believed in.

"Syna is my favorite. The warms and joy she brings makes me smile everyday. And I am afraid that besides you and another that I know, I do not know many who speak or know about Avalis to really pass judgement on it." he said. He tilted his head and with a goofy almost childish smile. "You play the lute? Maybe we can play together sometime. I can play my harp while you play your lute. Maybe Rhaus will play with us" he offered.

Upon entering the room he glanced down at the little bird that sat in the box. "Is it hurt?" he asked, turning his eyes to Caelum. Before blushing again and shaking his head. "I have never really had tea. Not enough to actually answer that question" he said.

Adrien Dair