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[Aoren]

87th of Winter, 514 AV
Late Evening

Leth was high in the sky that evening. The light cast by his pale face made the Sea of Grass seem almost ethereal in the dark of the night. Aoren stood alone though not far away from the encampment that they had made not but a few days prior. His cloak was draped about his shoulders to stave off the cold. He was restless without really knowing the reason why. Winter had been a season of change. He couldn’t place his finger on it but Aoren had the distinct feeling that a chapter of his life was coming to close. With it came an assortment of feelings ranging from sadness to happiness to uncertainty. He reflected on the journey that he had taken so far.

A year ago he had been in Syliras. The Fortress City of Peace where the Knights ruled with a tight albeit benevolent grip. It was difficult to believe just how naïve to the ways of the world Aoren had been within the sheltered walls of the citadel. Syliras was truly a beacon of civilization in the scattered world that was Mizahar but it was not a home where Aoren could be happy. When he had finally come to that realization he had worked up the courage to say goodbye to not only the place where he’d grown up but the memories that stayed there. At one point he thought he might have returned to the realm of the Knights but with everything that had happened in the past year he couldn’t see himself ever returning. At least not to stay. He’d packed up leaving behind the life he’d known traveling with caravan into the Wildlands and to Zeltiva.

Aoren felt a nudge at his leg. He looked down to see Isikai at his side. The large black dog had been with him since the beginning of that journey. A fond smile touched the Seer’s face. He rest a hand atop the canine’s head rubbing an ear gently between his fingers.

“Where do we go from here, eh my friend?” Where indeed? From Syliras he had traveled to Zeltiva where he’d been granted entry into the halls of its auspicious University. The city had taught him many things. Part of him believed that he had left the city too soon. Perhaps there would come a day when the City of Sails was again on the horizon.

Riverfall had brought with it a completely different experience. The Akalak were an imposing people. There was an appreciation and zest for life in everything they did. The meticulous attention to detail in even the smallest nooks and crannies of what he’d seen was a tribute to their outlook on life. Not only that he’d been welcomed into the life and arms of Caelum. The Ethaefal often evoked in Aoren far more questions than he ever did answers and it was certainly off putting on some degree. But Aoren couldn’t deny his feelings for the man. There was also Kavala. The proud and capable Konti woman had impressed Aoren with her strong will and intelligent manner. There was also Adrien, the rhino Kelvic had begun to occupy a place in Aoren’s heart as a good and admirable friend.

Aoren realized that he was building for himself the life that had been so viciously denied him for so long. Leoshan, the father and teacher he had lost and Ileera, the ghost of their memories still visited him from time to time but their passing had been so long ago he was finding it harder and harder to recall them. The image of their faces wasn’t as clear. The ache of their loss wasn’t as sharp. Aoren felt another nudge this time against his hand. It was followed by a huff from Isikai prompting Aoren to chuckle.

“What?” Isikai quirked his head staring up at Aoren with reddish brown eyes. The displaced Drykas shook his head.

“Alright. I won’t dwell.” He lowered himself into a kneel beside his dog running his fingers through the soft fur. Isikai leaned over sniffing at Aoren’s face before licking him. The Seer gave his companion a one armed hug happy to have him by his side. Still, the feeling of restlessness flittered about in his stomach.

What would Endrykas hold? There was a choice to be made in the coming days. Aoren could feel it. He had no idea what to expect and in spite of that he wasn’t afraid. He was ready to dive into the unknown.

[Caelum]

It had been only a matter of time before the healers of the Opal Clan waylaid Caelum. Nehrar Tenderbloom had drawn him aside early in the evening, alerted by the simple signal of his twin gnosis marks of Rak’keli’s favor on the backs of his hands. After inquiring of the Watch, Nehrar tracked the ethaefal down and hailed him as Sunsinger before politely but quite firmly ushering him to the River Flower. There Caelum spent several hours in lively conversation with the gentle healer, assisting with his patients and advising him on the treatment of some others. Soon the Tenderbloom Ankal, Denhar, arrived from the Healing Hoof looking for an extra set of hands with a pack of hunting hounds who all bore a highly contagious infection of the ears. The next hour had been spent by the ethaefal rolling around in the grass with the dogs after using the grace of Rak’keli to flush their systems, one by one, free of the crud. After sharing a mug of Denhar’s ale with the Tenderblooms, Caelum finally peeled himself away to make it back to his own camp. Discovering Aoren and Isikai gone, he proceeded to set Gunn and the striders to “watch and guard” mode about the tent in which Lillian slept soundly. They were in some ways better than any human bodyguards he might assign to his daughter. The night was cool but the frost that had flirted with their lungs all winter was largely thawed. The approaching spring had already begun to drag its fingers through Caelum’s coloring when the sun was up, streaking brassy, antique gold through pale brown hair and lightening the pine forest hue of his horns slowly to the color of new grass. A hint of twilight lavender would encircled the base of horns come dawn, and perhaps it was in memory of this brilliance his mortal form seemed now so dark. He wore his winter weight cloak instead of his split jacket, and the hem whispered against the grass as he paced in approach of the more vibrant shadow that his heart already knew was Aoren. The cloak was a touch too long because, like all his other articles of clothing, it had been tailored to the measurements of his day form. Caelum whistled softly, teasing Isikai as well as alerting the dog. After all, he did smell like a pack of hounds at the moment, all dusty and ruffled and clean sweat, swift wind. Green stained his fingertips, the remnants of whatever herbal concoction he had fashioned together for the Tenderbloom’s approval. “I think it will be a warm spring but a hard summer,” the healer sighed, still speaking Pavi with his mortal tongue. Gold flecked eyes lingered, curious and concerned, on Aoren as he came to a halt beside him. "What are you looking for now?" He pried gently.

[Aoren]

Somehow he knew who was approaching even before the whistle that drew Isikai's attention. The measured weight of Caelum's steps had become familiar to him. He certainly spent enough time with the Ethaefal between nights spent wrapped in each others embrace and days working as Healers in Riverfall. The gnosis gracing the right side of his face whispered gently to him as further confirmation.

Isikai moved not from Aoren's side though the dog turned his head to acknowledge Caelum. Aoren smiled at his lover. It was a thought that struck him as wonderful and still slightly odd. It was an oddity of the good variety though.

"Then we will be stronger for it. I only worry that you'll be so busy tending to patients suffering from sunburns that you'll forget to take time to rest." He spoke in Common not truly in the mood to muddle through halting Pavi. A sigh flowed out of him as he was once again drawn into the web of his own thoughts. He continued to thread his fingers through Isikai's fur, grounded by the motion. To Caelum's question he answered softly.

"Myself." Cobalt blue eyes came to rest upon Caelum. The Seer studied the story of Kasb'el's life as written by the windmarks upon his skin. Under the moonlight they seemed more captivating somehow.

"You know I've never actually been able find my father's Chavi. It's funny..." Aoren pushed himself up to his feet. "Here I am in the land of my kin and I've never felt further away."

He shook his head stepping closer to the Ethaefal patting Isikai on the head as he passed. Aoren reached out drawing Caelum into his arms. Wordlessly he rest his forehead against Caelum's closing his eyes. For a moment he just stood there enjoying the closeness. When he opened his eyes he placed a kiss upon Caelum's brow.

"Coming to Endrykas, I realize just how much I need to overcome in myself. I cannot let the burdens of my past continue to shape me and yet I am still beholden to it." Aoren laughed. It was a weary thing. He looked skyward for a moment before returning his gaze to the man in front of him.

"What am I missing, Caelum?" The question was almost rhetorical. This was a subject very close to Aoren's heart. He'd spent years thinking it over he really didn't know how to bring closure to the matter. He realized that knowing where one came from, their origins helped to shape a man. But to be ruled by it? He couldn't continue in this manner. It would only lead him down an path of aimless wandering. For all of his self-searching however, Aoren felt only a strong desire to put to rest old questions that he might form and answer new ones.

[Caelum]

Divine magic crackled through Caelum when Aoren reached for him. It was as familiar a sensation as the rush of air in and out of his lungs or the grace of daylight on his face. There was so great a quantity of grace that channeled through Caelum and strung together his bones that it was a ceaseless song in his ears, just on the outside of hearing, humming wordlessly somewhere between his heart and the great vacancy in his soul. There were hours in which he wanted to silence it and others still in which he had, smothering the song like flattening his hand on the strings of a harp. It was not a full disconnect, that a possibility he largely dreaded since having ascended out of his forsaken state; but it was a stifling. He could be desperate at times to just lower the volume of subliminal signals moving through him from the greater spread of the universe. When Aoren reached for him, that magic soared. It left him wincing but not from pain while he snaked strong arms around the seer and let himself be cuddled in. Aoren was warm and the night air was touched with frost. Breath steamed as he ducked his face into Aoren's throat and listened to his words between the beats of his heart. It was more than the sweet pulse of Rak'keli's favor raising in acknowledgment of its brethren, and it was even more than Nikali's velvet roll through him that left trails of embers behind he attempted to sort before they were snuffed out. There were a dozen different little needs and desires that popped out inside of him like lightning bugs, but most of them were familiar. Aoren, after all, was familiar. A whole season now Caelum had spent nearly every day in close contact with Aoren and it had insidiously and undeniably begun to alter the very map of Caelum's own private ambitions. He could hear it now in the scoff of wind that caught the edge of his cloak, tangling it around both of their legs and scraping cool fingers through their hair. He could hear himself change beneath Zulrav's sighs if he listened closely enough, he thought. Maybe if he sought he could still find those eroding pieces of himself. But it was warm here, in Aoren's arms. He did not stir. All of this and more tumbled through Caelum's mind like coins in the dark, flashing a sunny gold as he sifted through them and put a price to every one of Aoren's words. As he was sometimes known to do, Caelum therefore went straight from a comfortable, listening silence and directly to the point. "Then it's time we find out where you came from, Aoren," he said without apology, lifting his head and taking a step back to clear his thoughts with a hint of distance. Dark eyes found blue and he did not smile so much as he smirked. "No more wasting time. No more waiting on fate to find out. I learned a long time ago that it's a fools errand, and either you'll cool your heels half your life or you just end up being snared by the wrong kind of destiny altogether." It could find Aoren as it had Caelum, in a black pit of Ravok or one foot in the sea on a lost shore. The dreamwalker tilted his head in invitation back towards their camp. It had been that bit of his magic too. A power that was not his, but placed in sacred trust on loan by the Lord of Nightmares. It was not the gnosis mark that typically stirred when Aoren was near, but it did now and insistently. Caelum knew better than to disobey such a summons. He had tried -- oh, how he'd tried -- once before. It had ended poorly. "I think it's time we walked your chavi, love."

[Aoren]

Caelum’s blunt statement about the foolishness of waiting on fate was met with the arching of a brow. Aoren was further surprised when the Ethaefal made it very clear that the time had come to walk his chavi. It was something that stilled Aoren’s thoughts. The Drykas shivered but it was not from the cold.

There were things that pained him whenever he looked into his past. Things that he avoided. Things that he had pointedly buried.

Aoren couldn’t explain it but the idea of looking into his own past always filled him with dread. It was not something that he did often though it was well within his ability to do. The idea seemed wrong to him on a level that he couldn’t understand. It was only in his calmest moments that he was able to face the ghosts of his past with a level head. Those moments took much meditation or were laced with emotional stress to a point where he could only find peace by looking back in order to move forward.

“Caelum…” Aoren’s voice hitched. The Seer clenched his hands. His heart was racing. It was suddenly a little more difficult to breathe. “I don’t…it’s hard for me to gaze into my own chavi.”

Didn’t he know just how difficult? Every instance that Aoren had ever searched his own chavi for better understanding of past events, he had been consumed with nightmares for days afterward. Without fail, that was what happened every time. He would wake with a throat made raw from screaming, drenched in sweat and shivering with fatigue. The shadow of a memory, one of the more recent bouts of nightmares that plagued him, cropped up into his thoughts. It was a nightmare that Caelum had stamped down for which he was grateful. That dark dream was nothing compared to what would follow though.

For a long moment, Aoren stood there. A slight shiver went up one of his legs and for it he felt a coward. Why was he filled with this irrational fear? Was his role as a Seer not to guide others through the lessons of their past? Why was his so difficult to face? He was always filled with questions about his origins. There were few days that went by that his head was not buzzing with everything he wanted to know. Yet, he couldn’t work up the nerve to search for it.

“I just…give me a moment.” The Seer clenched his jaw taking a few steps away from the warmth of his lover to face the darkness of the night. He closed his eyes breathing in through his nose exhaling through his mouth. He rubbed at his shoulders as he sifted through his thoughts. Slowly the coolness of the winds drifted across his face. He could feel Caelum behind him. He thought on what waited for him. In the warmth of their tent he would be safe in the embrace of his lover. He drew strength from that thought if only a little. There came a nudge at his leg prompting Aoren to look down. Isikai pawed at his leg with a whine bringing a very small smile to the Seer’s face. He thread his fingers through the dog’s fur with a heavy sigh.

“Alright.” Turning around he faced Caelum, far from the picture of confidence. “Let’s do it.”

Taking a few steps forward he reached for Caelum’s hand lacing their fingers together. Aoren’s hand felt unsteady. The felt as if it were biting into him more than it should. Still, he didn’t let that stop him. He closed his eyes drawing comfort from the touch he shared with the Dreamwalker as they made their way back to the tent.

Tears. Pain. Nightmares.

These were the things that waited for Aoren in his past. He would face them nevertheless. Now was the time for answers. The time for playing the blind fool was over.

.