Treading a Familiar Road (Closed, Kamalia/Gromhir)

[Gromhir]

As Kamalia mentioned home, his eyes looked to her. For a brief moment, she could see and feel the love he felt for her. The very same love that he struggled to show because he did not know how. “My home is with you,” his voice replied softly in her mind. The Ivaski let out a full-bodied sigh as Kamalia lay her hand on him. He always enjoyed the feeling of her delicate fingers through his fur. It was comforting, reassuring and loving all at once. But he could not bring himself to move until Adam made his move. The Knight was knocked back further by the spell that Kamalia had flung at him. He glared at the Spellweaver and prepared to draw his second blade until a small hand fell on his large ones. “It’s ok, Adam,” Lyeia smiled up at her large friend. She had a genuinely caring smile and a friendly demeanour. Adam nodded and sheathed his weapons. Without out another word to the pair from the White Isle, he and Belinda left leaving Lyeia alone with. Gromhir instantly stopped growling. The change in him was so sudden once again. If Lyeia were truly blessed by Caiyha, then that would explain a lot about his actions. She looked between the two of them. “I do not mean to sound rude, Lady Kamalia,” Lyeia began softly. “But I told Gromhir I never wished to see him again. I am sure that you can understand the pain that he has caused me.” Kamalia could feel Gromhir’s heart sink like a boulder in the open ocean. It was a very familiar feeling the sorceress. She had felt the very same thing when she had been cast out of her home. Lyeia turned her green-eyed gaze to Gromhir. The Ivaski backed away, whimpering quietly. “Seeing you here has only opened old wounds, Gromhir. I never wished for you back. You could not even understand the pain you have caused me. What did you hope to achieve by returning to me? You betrayed everything I taught you in one short and brutal moment.” Lyeia was right, of course. She had taught him to kill only what he needed to survive. Not to be greedy or bloodthirsty. Yet, that night, when he saw his anger, Gromhir attacked. Gromhir was afraid for her safety in the house of the man. He was trying to protect her. He knew now that he should not have killed the man. Once more, Lyeia had closed the door on him. Left him pawing at the door, wanting to be let in. He could feel the pain in her heart. The pain of her Lover’s death but there was more than that. Gromhir was too absorbed in his own feelings to see it. “I’ll wait out of sight. When you have what you need, call for me,” he sent through their bond. He tried to hide his pain from her but he knew how futile it was. The Kelvic backed away and disappeared in to the brush. The large wolf curled up at the base of an Oak Tree not far from the path. If he were capable of tears in his Ivaski form, they would have been running down his cheeks. Lyeia’s hand went to her chest, in an attempt to stave off some of the tightest that refreshed to release there. She looked back to Kamalia. “I am truly sorry for your wasted journey.”

[Kamalia Timandre]

“Stand away!” the Konti sorceress forcefully demanded. She was surprised when the knight reached for his second blade, but the young mage was ever prepared for anything. Kamalia stared down at the knight with a queenly mien to match his glare, steeling herself for battle. She was already softly chanting another incantation, and her fingers sped through the gestures of an immobilizing spell, when the too-familiar voice of a human female stopped Kamalia halfway in her spellcasting.

Even as tensions rose and the onset of battle loomed menacingly, Lyeia managed to be eerily calm and friendly. Kamalia slowly lowered her hands and breathed in relief when Adam sheathed his blade back into its scabbard. Her gaze never left knight until he and Belinda were no longer in sight. “Thank you,” Kamalia breathed, staring wearily at Lyeia. Nothing much seemed to have changed in how she looked. The young woman appeared gentle and graceful, yet Kamalia could have sworn she had seen much sorrow in her green eyes. The expressive, joyful glint on them was gone.

Kamalia saw how Lyeia’s presence affected Gromhir, as the ivaski’s aggressiveness instantly faded. The konti immediately realized that a bond could have formed between them were it not for the unfortunate incident. The konti stared into Lyeia’s eyes and listened to her words courteously.

So this was what Gromhir was hiding from her. He was afraid that Kamalia would close the door on him, too. Maybe he was also afraid that he would lose Kamalia if she found out. Gromhir should have known better. If the kelvic accepted her, for all her flaws, for all her failings, for all the darkness in her soul, how could she not accept Gromhir?

She could feel his heart stabbed by Lyeia’s words, as if his heart were her own. She wanted to take Gromhir away from all these, to protect him from all the hurt, but they could and would no longer run away. Kamalia felt her throat and chest tightening when Lyeia told Gromhir he had betrayed her.

The Konti only managed a weak nod when Gromhir told her through ivaski telepathy that he would wait out of sight. She wished she could follow after and comfort him, but there were things that she wanted to understand, and wanted to say to Lyeia.

“It was hardly wasted,” Kamalia said empathetically. There was a long moment of silence when Konti looked up to stare at the summer morning sky, brilliantly blue as her lover’s eyes. She smiled a beautiful pained smile, “I would like to thank you for nurturing Gromhir. He told me you taught him happiness and the simple joys of life, and that you taught him how to laugh and smile. He saw you as a mother, perhaps even more so than the mother he never had,” she said softly, before staring into her eyes.

“I cannot even begin to imagine the pain of losing that which you value most in this world,” said Kamalia softly, “but I wish to tell you Gromhir could no longer run away and hide from all these. He is here not to make excuses, but to make amends.”

[Gromhir]

Lyeia politely listened to the Konti’s words. She gave a smile and looked down at Kamalia’s words. The conflict in Lyeia’s heart was just the same as had been in Gromhir’s. “Gromhir was a lot younger when he came to me. I never asked about his past. I did not care for it. I saw him as a gift from Caiyha herself,” Lyeia simply did not understand the simple truth in that statement. “I watched him grow as a white wolf. I understand now that he is an Ivaski and a Kelvic. When my husband found out that our pet was in fact a Kelvic, he was angry.” The woman gave a pained sigh as she recalled the events of that night. They played over and over again in her mind. So much so in fact, that Kamalia’s sight once again picked up on it. This time from the woman’s point of view as she began to explain. “My husband came back early…” The young boy that was Gromhir sat on Lyeia’s bed as she began to read a book to him. Kamalia could feel the happiness and joy that Gromhir gave her. The small boy listened intently as Lyeia regaled him with the same story he had told on the boat from Mura. The white haired child sat eagerly listening to everything she said. The intelligence behind his youthful blue eyes absorbing everything word for word. Suddenly a man burst in through door. At first, there was confusion from both parties. The man’s quickly turned to anger and rage though, Lyeia panicked. She tried to reason with him. Tried to convince him that she had not cheated on her husband. Kamalia could feel the fear in Lyeia’s heart. Not fear of the man, but of if he would leave her over this misunderstanding and her dishonesty. The reaction from Gromhir was one that he still took to today; such was his distrust of humans. The struggle between the pair ended rather quickly. There was a brief fight but the Kelvic was far faster than the farmer. “…I was horrified. Blood poured from his neck. I physically threw Gromhir out of the door. I could hear him pawing at it as I cried myself to sleep over my dead husband.” By this point, Lyeia’s face was streaked with fresh tears. She managed to regain some composure before continuing. “I told him he should never return for the pain he caused me.” She wiped her cheeks clear of the tears. Her chest rose and fell and she attempted to get air back in to her lungs. Lyeia was a caring woman and this was clearly harder for her than she would ever admit. “Unless Gromhir has learnt to bring back the dead, I doubt very much he can make any amends.” She looked at Kamalia finally. “I showed Gromhir love and he returned it by destroying the most important thing in my life. What possible way can he make amends? There is no retribution for that monster. Not even Caiyha could tame that savage beast. You should get away from him while you can.”

[Kamalia Timandre]

The young Konti gave Lyeia a long, knowing glance. She absorbed every word that came from Lyeia’s mouth calmly, ever so calmly, even though they pierced the Konti girl’s heart like shards of glass. Not even once did Kamalia pin the blame on Gromhir, for the seer believed that it had happened by divine decree, and she knew was not alone in this belief. Glav Navik, the Keeper of the Temple of All Gods, had once told Kamalia that it was Mother Avalis herself who had brought Gromhir into her life. The emotions seeping from both Gromhir and Lyeia were too overpowering, that it almost strangled the Konti seer, inundating her heart in a raging deluge. She breathed deeply. A faint smile curved Kamalia’s lips, but sadness seemed to linger in her eyes—a familiar sadness, one that Lyeia had known and seen in Gromhir’s.

The Seer Mother’s maternal warmth embraced the exiled daughter once again, and her soul was pulled into a graceful web of geometric shapes, colors, patterns and cords that drifted and rippled beautifully. For a while, Kamalia glided and skimmed the vast expanse of memories and the ocean of dreams, knowing instinctively that she was being ferried towards Lyeia’s chavi. In her memories she saw Gromhir, young and innocent and only just a boy, with his eyes that shone with intelligence and a mop of silky white hair tumbling about his youthful face. Lyeia was there, bereft of the sorrow in her smile, reading to him a bedtime tale that Gromhir had told once told Kamalia when he was trying to make her fall asleep. That smile, that curious look, those ever-inquiring eyes, Kamalia remembered them all from the night she taught the kelvic about Mizahar and the gods. That was the first time Gromhir slept in her luxurious chambers back in House Timandre. Kamalia remembered them all too well. It was a smile that knew home.

She watched them quietly, watched the boy’s innocent eyes as he took in the story of the wolf and the fox. She watched how Lyeia’s man burst in, with a condemning glare and an accusing finger. Gromhir shapeshfited into his canine form, and Kamalia heard shrieks and cries and whimpers, before blood streaked the vision. The dream shook and quivered, and Kamalia’s soul slipped back through the cosmos of colors and into the mundane sphere of the present.

Lyeia’s next words held enough truth to sting her, but when the human called Gromhir a “monster”, Kamalia’s calm expression froze into an icy mien. Her empathetic eyes hardened. “Have a care how you speak about Gromhir,” Kamalia cautioned in a perfectly even voice. Suddenly, the konti seemed to appear regal, as if she held an air of command. “Gromhir is my bondmate and my heart. He had protected me many times as he had tried to shield you with his very life from the rage of your husband,” said Kamalia sternly,” but your anger and pain render you blind as you refuse to acknowledge the truth—that Gromhir only protected that which he once loved more than anything else in this world. If you were a true follower of Caiyha, mayhap you should have seen that. Mayhap you should have seen that Gromhir was a child, and he simply did not know how much pain it would cause you. Your husband’s notion of love is one of control and possession. Gromhir willingly took the blow that was meant for you, though he knew it would hurt him. For him, I would fain do the same. That is what it means to love.”

Kamalia understood that Lyeia’s wounds were still fresh. It had not been too long ago, after all. “We cannot bring your husband back to life, not even by magic,” the konti’s voice softened. “The gift of choice is pure and plain. You can hold on to this hatred and blindness and bemoan your life, or turn from this chosen path of pain and ache no more. This is your choice,” the sorceress said gently.

[Leviathan]

Thread Award! Kamalia   Skills Skill Gain Info. Seduction 2 -- Negotiation 1 -- Interrogation 1 -- Reimancy 1 -- Intimidation 1 --   Lore Gromhir's Past (Moderate) Gromhir   Skills Skill Gain Info. Seduction 1 -- Detection 1 -- Intimidation 1 --   Lore N/A

CommentsKams, sorry Gromhir kinda abandoned you. If you have any questions, comments, or concerns feel free to PM me!