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Wolf #970249 Sat 04/05/19 15:47 UTC
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Léirigh'Amhránaí

Lyric

So much was said... stated, but little was asked. Lyric didn't know how to respond. Wisdom, advice, words of encouragement, all coiled up like so much string about their hearts and minds, offered to her one after another. Lyric listened, eyes shifting from one to the next, in turn, looking at others in moments where the words trailed off and before the enxt ones were spoken.

It was starting to become very overwhelming to her.

She looked at the tooth and tightened her grip upon it. She had given the Pack, and One Fang specifically, her real name. Words were powerful and whether or not they actually have meaning any more or not, they still carried magic. They were still binding. Names were powerful. They may have lost meaning, or the Fae may have lost the connections to communicate with feeling, but the words themselves, woven in the magic that ran in their blood, the power that bound them.

So yes, Oaths and bindings had for so long been uttered without the heart, but that didn't make them any less real or binding. So yes, the Fae society was little more than the lattice work of magic, a web woven to keep them entangled to one another after they lost the understanding of how to do it any other way.

Lyric stood there, silent. She seemed lost in thoughts, trapped in memories, searching for something, anything that was real in all her lifetime. Maybe if she found that she might have a shard of reality to grasp and hold onto, and from that find a sliver of hope that she might understand what these young women were telling her, all of them Tomomi, Kisa, and Eleni.

"Time is meaningless to us," she offered quietly, flatly, and without expression. "Within our realm, we are Immortal. I don't know if the same holds true here where Time has regency over all who were born here. I am one the youngest of my kind, the last of the Fae to have been born. My people are a dying race. They just don't know it, or they simply refuse to accept it."

She took a deep breath. Continuing, her mind still seemed elsewhere, words being spoke but her mind and heart were searching within. She seemed so much older, so weighed down by an unseen burden, that even the Sage and Wise Lyric spoke as though her words had no feeling in them.

"The curse of immortality is such that it dulls the senses to everything, and makes one push further and further to feel anything at all. To do everything, be everything, try everything, feel everything. And when there is nothing left to feel you have only the remembrance of feeling, and of emotion, and even those become like shadow play, a caricature of reality. If you do something long enough then you can convince yourself that it is real, has meaning, and is important. Tell yourself a lie enough times and you may well begin to believe it.

"Suffer immortality and you can't even remember when life lost all meaning, and your soul lost all sanguinity. And you simply exist, pretending that you have relevance despite all evidence to the contrary. You can not live life in a void of isolation. You are doomed the moment you seal yourself away behind a veil of your own insecurities and arrogance.

"If you trade away your need for freedom for the want of safety, never knowing the infinite value of what you surrender, nor the immeasurable price of the consequences of your choice, steal the most powerful magic you can find, then you condemn yourself to an illusion that the latter fulfills the former. The lie becomes your truth, your world, and your prison.

"You create your own truth, and live in that lie until the unbearable weight of that endless void that is your soul or spirit cries out. Mayhap that sounds only like a distant echo as you repeat now pantomimed experiences that have long ago, or maybe just the previous dawn, lost any meaning and significance. But should it bring you to pause, even if only for a fraction of a moment... that then is the first moment you are rebirthed and alive again, truly alive, all in an amount of time you no longer have the capacity to comprehend. Reach for it, grasp it, hear it... draw it to you and make it part of you.

"Like a spark to dry grasses and kindling, smolder and smoke can become flame and fire, building a lasting ember in the pit of the vessel where once a spirit dwelled. Still it does dwell, just withered and weak, atrophied but redeemable. Pour into that pit constantly this fire as if it were a liquid, life-giving and rich, for a fire's life is brief but in infinite, joyful, hopeful, sorrow-laden supply. Love and hate have to mean something. Joy and sorrow can not exist without each other. Courage and fear can not be known individually. Without the true experience of any one of these things you can not understand the other. But to do that, to reach out and grasp that flickering mote of light, that infinitesimal spark of hope, that sound you think is an echo, you must be willing to experience life and not hide from it.

Lyric blinked for the first time in a while, if anyone was paying attention. She no longer seemed lost in a past, searching for a remembrance of a life that once had meaning.

"I wanted to know how old Snowgate Keep was. I wanted to find an anchor that could give me perspective...

"I was a child when my people crossed into Faere. I don't remember it as anything more than shadows of fim memories now. I was born at the beginning of the Shattering War."

Wolf #970360 Sun 05/05/19 19:33 UTC
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Lord Protector, Her Ladyship Verchovai Daxia Yurisdotter
[Daxia serves DAYALA... the GM ESPECIALLY should get this right]

As the minstrel’s words touched each of those gathered on the balcony, Daxia’s Lady showed Herself in the east — hues of purple and red and pink and orange preceding Her brightness.

The Priestess smiled at Lyric and shook her head. “I mean no disrespect when I say that your experience of immortality is not the only one. And perhaps your experience and that of your people is so different simply because you took yourselves away from the world.”

Rather than saying anything more, she turned to face the rising Sun... extricating her arm from Kisa’s grasp and, with a hand on each of the Heir’s shoulders, turned her to face east as well. And then she grinned.

“Good morning, my Lady. How fortunate I am that You’ve blessed me with an interesting life! As you can see, I have now made the acquaintance of a charming young Fae — ‘young’ being a rather impressively relative term, of course. I’m so glad that You have ensured that I will never be bored, as my adventures and misadventures will keep You from being bored!”

Dazi glanced at Kisa beside her before continuing.

“In my most humble opinion, You could have stopped when Kisa came into my life, but I must say that everything that’s happened in the past year has only enriched an otherwise wealthy existence for me.”

She was silent then for a few moments. Perhaps it was because she had more words to share with her Lady, private and personal. Or perhaps words were insufficient to convey the fullness of her heart. Given the range of topics during her daily conversations with Dayala, even Kisa would be hard pressed to alight on the right answer.

Of course, the fact that Dazi had once again twined her fingers with Kisa’s might have been a significant clue.

Finally, she turned to face Lyric again.

“Morning Star is an Immortal Being. He’s more self-centered than any human could possibly be. He maintains his Truth of knowing everything while proving over and over again that he certainly does not know everything. As far as I can tell, he doesn’t even see this contradiction. He gossips about his brothers because that’s his nature, not necessarily because I needed to understand that the Unicorns are not perfect. All the while, he continues to insist that they are. Oh...” She snickered. “Not their sisters, of course. They’re flighty and unreliable.

“And perfectly suited to prancing through the lives of children.”

She shrugged.

“Maybe the difference is that they, the Unicorns, have existed in this world where Time and Order constrain everything. Perhaps all the things your people have forgotten how to feel are defined by the passage of time, although I’m not sure that’s quite true. But I’ll defer to those who have a better understanding of such things, for I’ve only lived in this world for a fullhand of years.”

“Not until next month,” Kisa quietly noted.

Daxia stuck her tongue out and then laughed.

“My point in all of this is that he has never given me the impression that immortality is a curse. He hasn’t given up feeling — his anger at the death of his brother has hardly dimmed in the hundreds of years since Evening’s Star was killed by Eastern warriors. He is insufferably proud of me when I piece together bits of history and my own experience to solve one of his infernal riddles.

“There seem to be different ways of experiencing immortality, just as there are different ways of experiencing a moral life. It’s how you look at it, I think. You can look at your life and circumstances as a burden, or see them as a gift. Eleni’s right, of course. Eventually, the Shattering with catch up to your people and their world will change.

“You can sing their death knell, or you can sing an anthem to the hope and promise of lives lived under my Lady’s rule. Show them a gift where now they only see the burden.”


[OOC: Apologies if I’m not making sense. Such is the danger when we slide toward the philosophical side of things.]


"Everything is bad except unicorns." -- Phoebe
Wolf #970361 Sun 05/05/19 19:34 UTC
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Keiko khal’Nakano Hoshiko
[pronounced KAY-ko... do you think the GM has memorized this yet? Nope, not yet...]

Keiko stifled her giggle at hearing Lady Daxia’s morning prayers. When the priestess concluded her comments to Lyric, she looked at her friend and shrugged.

“Lady Daxia has given us many things to think about, but if you are only interested in knowing how many years have passed since the Shattering War began, that is a question easily answered, Friend Lyric!

“The current year began on the first day of Tiger. This is the two thousandth, six hundredth, and twenty-fifth year since the Dayalans began marking time. The beginning of the Shattering War was counted as the beginning of Time.”

She shrugged as she glanced around the space, at the Dayalans arrayed around them.

“As for how old Dama Eleni’s Keep is...? Well, younger than that. But counted against the many years that have passed under Her bright gaze, it seems that it would not be very much younger.”


"Everything is bad except unicorns." -- Phoebe
Wolf #970394 Mon 06/05/19 09:59 UTC
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Cesare

He shuffles slightly as he listens, perhaps contemplating a return to the food basket whilst there is still warmth within. But first he speaks.

"I cannot begin to imagine what it must be to be immortal. I am not, but I tell you I am glad of that. Life's riches lie in its infinity variety and its vibrancy. To feel life fully, I have to feel its fragility from time to time, to risk its loss is to savour it the most."

He shrugs.

"I tend to look at life simply. It makes things easier."

And with that he crosses to the basket but instead of helping himself, he instead moves around their small gathering offering its contents to others.

Wolf #970963 Sun 12/05/19 19:09 UTC
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The Heartwood
Dawnview Vale
Snowgate Keep, Tower Balcony
Hasday, the Thirteenth Day of Tiger


Bekkah, Cesare, Daxia, Keiko, Lyric, Anatoli, Eleni, Kisa, Slink, and Tomomi

Tomomi's head just tilted. Then she became a brave Mouse. Reaching up to take Lyric's hand she took two steps towards the parapet to one of the crenellations, where she could stand on tiptoes to get a better look at the lands around Snowgate Keep.

"So Snowgate is too young, built after this shattering time, after you and yours ran away. We ran away too you know. Ran away from the Mines to Home. But even then we knew we could not live alone. Would we be who we are without our Marketday?"

She then extended her free hand, pointing to the eastern horizon.

"Want an anchor from way back then? Something you know so close to your heart?"

Tomomi pointed to the Black Mountains.

"You know what they are."

The little mouse-girl was quiet for a long set of heartbeats.

"They are the most powerful. They are the most immortal.

"And yet."

She raised her head, offering her companion a small odd smile.

"Do you... do you want you and yours... do you want to end up like them?"

As Tomomi spoke, Kisa silently answered Daxia, in a shy and silent manner. Without a word, she simply tightened her grip, gently squeezing her Knight's hand. Her head tilted a bit, as she listened. If she was at a loss because she didn't know all that little group shared she kept it to herself. Even Eleni fell quiet, the chatterbox perhaps realizing there was nothing more to be said that hadn't been said one way or another before. Oddly it was the least expected one who did speak. She did so as she stretched with a long theatrical yawn. She didn't offer prayers, but she did offer Her a slow lazy wave as the sun peeked into view. She did so as she slowly moved from crenellation to crenellation until she found one warmed by a morning sunbeam.

"I may be the worlds laziest Dayalan."

Slink spoke as she curled herself up between the taller marble stones.

"But unlike those sleepy mountains, I sleep with a purpose. There's an order to sunbeams, and if Dayala didn't want me to snooze the day, away she wouldn't give me so many nice places to snoozle. Yet someone has to keep our very cute but completely helpless Eleni safe. For that, you have to wake up. She's really lucky that we all dearly love her — because I don't wake up for just anybody."

Of course, her words and Tomomi's were completely coincidental. While there was no way she knew the truth of the Mines, the term 'sleeping mountains' was a common one. Slink closed one eye.

"It's dawn in Snowgate Keep. To me, it seems to be time for a certain minstrel to stop sleepwalking and wake up."

Of course, there were other things to be done this day, and they couldn't be finished unless they were started. Packing was a necessity, as well as gathering up the horses and a horribly put-upon unicorn, as climbing stairs was not part of his skill set and all he could do this morning was pace in the courtyard, far below the others.

As they gathered in the courtyard, Tomomi seemed a bit hesitant. Snowgate was Snowgate, and while here they explicitly had the Khorall's blessing, well, out in the Vale people were people. She looked at Lyric as they prepared to go, and one of the last things she did was draw up the hood of her travel cloak.

"Lady makes sure we all at Home understand that we do not wear our hoods because we are ashamed of who we are. We do so in consideration for others. Some folks take surprises better than others..."

As happenstance would have it, at that very moment, three of the keep's guards were crossing by — TeeCee and her two rapscallions.

"She's right, you know. Karina is going to throw an absolute tantrum. What I would give to be watching at the Temple well when that happens."

"Hey boss, can we go?"

"No."

"But we'll bring bread and cheese."

"NO!"

There were other, more interesting partings.

Anatoli literally had to pry Eleni from her sister, the younger one rattling on and on and on about how just one more day couldn't, shouldn't, wouldn't matter much at all to any grand pattern, not at all. Kisa just stood there like a shocked deer, not quite sure what to do except be temporarily smothered by her younger sister. She tried her best to be all adult and khorall-like — but as Daxia had seen many times before, she finally just had to break down and pat her sister on the head with a quiet "...there, there, there."

Eleni then tried to do the same with Tomomi, but Mice are fast, and Forever Friends are great hiding places, and besides, Anatoli was faster.

Tomomi did have her own parting words.

"I can only go to places I have seen, Miss Eleni. So it is with Mice. It just means that I must go and see...

"...before I can come home."

Before she could come home.

That made Eleni smile.

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