Skandra Tyullis (roll_the_bones) wrote in caeleste, @ 2009-05-14 11:49:00 |
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Entry tags: | aeotha easaahae, chosen, elemmírë, leironuoth, skandra tyullis |
a presence (leironuoth, aeotha, elemmire)
It wasn't hard to track night and day in the forest. Just as it wasn't hard to see it when something moved, something that shouldn't have been moving. What was more difficult, and perhaps more frustrating, was figuring out exactly what moved. And why. Skandra was not a man of the forest - cities were the jungles that he combed, and to great effect. You could move between one place and another without being seen if you wanted to. This place with its green and its red and the insects did not appeal to him. Yet here he was. Only now was he starting to understand - if not what had happened, then what had happened to him. The world seemed slower when he looked upon it now, seemed to crawl, grasping desperately for something faster, but his eyes never failed to adjust. Those shadows became forms.
"Stay alert," Skandra said with a cheery smile.
Humanoid forms.
"I could try to talk to them, make peace, but there is no peace with them."
His coat seemed lighter on his shoulders despite the heat, and his hat helped to shield his eyes from the sun. For now. Skandra didn't think this latest wave of humidity would last. It felt fragile. It felt hollow, as though the gods did not truly mean it, and that was when they punished you. Skandra stopped abruptly, nearly bumping into Sita, and offered her only a wave of his hand as an apology. An elf would have communed with the tree to know what he knew, would have looked to the sky for the warning, would have sought the truth in the heart of the moon. Skandra had nothing to go on but his instincts. Those and whatever finely-honed senses that he possessed. It wasn't enough for Skandra that he sipped of the water and had the answer. He wanted to know why there was even an answer in the first place, wanted to question the existence of a higher power to whom he could confess his heart. That was the real truth he sought.
All that time and he'd only been able to explain a few things to Elemmire and Sita. He was ... weighted down by the experience, and yet somehow more free, somehow sharper than he'd been before. During the illness. Or even before the illness. An awareness sat perched upon his shoulder now, directing his focus, urging him on. A presence. It was that presence which called him to Iasa. The same that told him he was meant for the stone, Ao's Tear, and it was meant for him. Those things should have troubled him more than they did. And in truth, now that he was away from the Tomb, he was troubled. They were talking about stealing from the Elves - one of whom had just saved his life - and doing it because of a feeling that he had. A feeling which had no rational explanation that he could provide. They clearly did not understand, either.
When you followed whims, they saved you.
When you followed destiny, it destroyed you.
"They hate us. They want to destroy us, and they'll use whatever means they can to make it so."
Standing there in a small clearing, with a square jaw and heavier shoulders, looking for all the world as he had when the battle for the tree raged hottest, Skandra wondered which one he was following. Or even why he was following it. Was that part of the bargain, the bargain he knew of but couldn't remember? Was he simply following a whim? Or was it destiny? Rude noise issued from his throat when he allowed that thought to take hold. So they were on their way. Skandra had completely failed to envision a plan with any hope of working. Luck would carry you as far as it could. And after luck was gone you did the rest with your own hands. What sort of world did he live in that would give him the goal without the cause? What sort of being would intercede to save the life of a known killer and drunk?
Questions that had no answer seemed to be his only company on the long walk from there to here. Skandra liked the sensation of walking - and that was a thought that had never come into his head before this day. Good to feel the earth beneath your feet. Good to know it was still there. Good to make no soul or creature suffer your burdens but you. And it encouraged you to travel light. You saw more of the world here, on the ground, than you ever did from a saddle. Taking things in was hard when you covered a horse with dead bovine and sat atop it, like some monotheistic heathen of old. Those shades were still there, still moving, and now he thought he knew what they were. How could that be? Skandra's eyes were moving faster than the shadows they followed. Or so it seemed. Sometimes he wondered if he would eventually overshoot them.
"I'll do it first. And would you weep for them, the ones that wanted to kill you? Would you defend them even while they seek to destroy you?"
"Whatever happens," Skandra added in a mumbled tone. "Don't say a word about what we're doing here."
There was no reason to think that they would have been aware of his plan. And even less to think that, if they had that awareness, they would have come here to stop him. And known directly where to go. It was luck, luck on his part, but which kind of luck? The best, or the worst? Aeotha and Leironuoth had never been able to stop themselves from being pious, despite the fact that they'd just finished killing a man out of revenge. And now the capitol was probably falling into disarray of every kind. Now the capitol probably transformed itself into a war zone, with them gone. Yet that didn't stop them from coming here. Such was the dedication they possessed. If he gave a damn about what happened to Terestai it might have bothered him. The way things were now, he had larger problems than Terestai, and no way of solving them.
He appeared to be the only person troubled by that.
"Well, come on out," Skandra called into the woods. "I know you're there."
He wished he could have said how he knew.