. (siri) wrote in emillion, @ 2014-04-30 22:55:00 |
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There would be fireworks at midnight, illuminating the sky above as they overtook the shine of the stars for a brief second. Siri liked to see the shower as they faded into darkness, comparing hume life against the fabric of time. Their lives were a mere second spark in what was eternity and Faram's will. It was not midnight yet, hands carefully folded on her lap as they finished their drinks and dinner together; Siri had spent the evening between them, carefully contained between and slipping from one to the other like water. Salty like the sea between Emillion and Kerwon, cool like the recently melted snow. "How much time since we celebrated a New Year together?" She knew and forgot- could not remember because the memories had hidden in the recesses of her mind or curled up like incense smoke and faded in thin air. “Too much,” Rictor said. This particular topic was a dangerous one. It drifted too close to the open wound for all three of them: the fear of repeated abandonment, the time that the men had spent away from Siri, abandoning her to the mages guild of Reinberg and her priestly benefactor. He counted out the time regardless, though, braving the subject: “Must’ve been 2010 or thereabouts.” He was easy, relaxed. Siri’s presence was a bridge between the two men, a base chemical to cool the acid between them; with her around, they could carry on dinner unimpeded, could carry conversations, could coexist better than usual. It completed the circle, the two sides of the scales now in perfect balance. "Sounds about right," Caspar said with a nod, his hands idly wiping the condensation from the side of his glass. Like Rictor, he was all too aware of the fine line this topic treaded, his disagreement with Siri still too fresh in his mind. But living in the past was unavoidable for the three Kerwonians. The past was what bound them, shaped them, and held them together. Like battle-worn soldiers many decades their elder, they would reminisce about the past up until they could no longer remember it. He smiled lazily, a corner of his mouth turning up as he looked between the other two. "As much I love this place, you have to admit that no one knows how to celebrate like they do back home." It was a rare thing for Caspar to feel fondness for the city of his birth, but his normal defenses always came down when Siri was near. There was an unspoken truce between the two men when she was present, an allowance of space to express emotions and nostalgia they would otherwise never allow in the other's presence (or in Caspar's case, at all). "I don't think I even remember most of New Year's day after that night." Not only was there balance between the two men, but within her mind they firmly held Siri in the moment. Time not lost, no beasts in the shadows; everyone else were metaphors and symbols. Rictor and Caspar were real and Siri felt tonight passing as if it were a normal day. Her fingers chased Caspar’s across to where he brushed the condensation of his glass and bumped them, smiling softly. “You’re right, Reinberg knows how to celebrate much better, at least so far. Maybe the fireworks tonight will change my mind.” Though she trusted Caspar’s assessment of the situation, anyway the place mattered less than the company. Siri could not claim to care for Emillion, not beyond the two men she sat with now &mash; there were others she liked but no one could compete. “The drinks back home are stronger, it is colder there.” “We’re doomed to be those assholes, aren’t we?” Rictor said, wry. “The grumpy middle-aged folks sitting in the corner, waving their tankards and griping about how the good old days were so much better.” A beat. “They really were better, though. I mean, nothing can fucking beat the view from Mt. Bur-Omisace.” It was a comfortable sort of nostalgia, the type he refrained from slipping into around others. With these two, however, the Kerwonian homesickness could run rampant—and it seemed less bitter and cancerous when shared, warm reminiscence rather than an aching loss. "They will," Caspar said, catching the fingers that chased his and giving them a light squeeze. "The fireworks are something else, even if the drinks aren't." His face split into a grin. "We just have to drink more, is all." It was a challenge at least two of the three Kerwonians would be up for. He chuckled. "We're not middle-aged yet, but we already are those grumpy fucks. Just looking at an upstart squire is enough to make me feel like an old fucking man." A pause, a nod. "It was so fucking peaceful out there I sometimes wonder if it actually was that beautiful or my brain is just making shit up." Rolling green hills and sparkling lakes sprang immediately to mind when he envisioned the countryside, the likes of which he had never since seen. Even though he had taken great exception to the religious leanings of Mt. Bur-Omisace, he could see why those who believed in Faram could think the place might be specially marked. "Do you think you'll ever go back?" Even though his tone made his own answer clear, the question was light and tinged with little more than curiosity. "Do you think you'll want to?" “Faram help me with both of you drunk.” Siri couldn’t help but laugh, contentment radiated off her as she shifted her fingers to bump them against Rictor’s this time. Each touch a reassurance that they really were here (and she needed it, needed to touch them, to know, to feel). Mt. Bur-Omisace had Siri falling silent in contemplation, she had been there so often (too often) - snow, the cold was what she recalled best of the place along with the carved statues, the stone beneath her fingertips. Would she go back? Siri didn’t hesitate, “Yes, when It calls for me.” Want or not was not the question for her. Faram called, Helios called, she would go. The Councillor in the mages guild had promised to bring her back, eventually but Siri had forgotten this detail by now. It no longer was important. “But,” her tone was careful, “I don’t want to go where you are not.” Rictor mulled over Caspar’s question. “Me either. I mean, I want to go back for visits—I miss it a shitton and haven’t been back to the Keep in forever, should probably see my parents at some point— but I don’t think I could relocate again. The Silver Blades are here.” A beat, an afterthought, “And both my sisters are here now. My family’s here.” The words seemed to morph and meld once they were out of his mouth; the trio seated around this table, well, these three were also family. Even that recalcitrant, punchdrunk sentinel sitting across from him, the brother Rictor never had. After a pause, however, he reflected on Siri’s words. “You said when, not if.” Ric turned his face to hers, assessing the look in Siri’s eye. (Like taking her pulse, the way both of them kept a careful watch on her current state.) “Have you seen something?” Caspar turned to look at Siri as well, careful to keep the worry of his face. He leaned forward, giving her arm a quick squeeze. "You don't have to go anywhere you don't want to." Vision or not, they could, and would, fight it. "Ric isn't the only one whose family is here." The words were out of his mouth before he could consider them, and now that they were, Caspar knew they were true. Caspar had no love for the idea of returning to Kerwon, as both the holy knight and the mage were well aware. He did miss his baby brother whom he hadn't seen for four years, and a part of him would always remain rooted in Reinberg where he was, but Emillion was his home now. The two people seated at the table with him — Ric, with his obstinate devotion, and Siri, with her troublesome ramblings — were as much family to him as his own blood brother was, and like it or not, Caspar's life found peace and stability (as much it could in Cassul's presence) when they were all together. "It might be stupid for me to say it out loud, but I think this might be it for me." There was the drumming of butterfly wings against her chest and Siri held perfectly still knowing that the slightest falter in her stance would reveal her (it was her stillness which gave it away though — there was no way to hide anything from them). Caspar's arm squeeze, his reassurance provided little relief. Yes she had seen something but more importantly she knew hume nature, "It is normal to want -to expect- misplaced things back." Strange how here in the open Siri could feel the differences between them as well as the similarities and on these points she could only disagree. Family for her was a distant concept, like love, like friendship: those values, those things could not be touched or felt by her. What she felt for Rictor and Caspar had no words; family? friends? Neither was the right term but she could recognize the significance it held for them. Melancholy laced itself around her heart at their words: she could never love Emillion like they did because the only distant memory of lucidity was in Kerwon. "There's something wrong in this city." “Is there?” Rictor said. But it was an instinctive question, mere filler as he reached for the rest of his drink and felt the festivities tightening around them, the force and weight of everyone else’s good cheer crowding the air as these three enjoyed their quiet corner. The dregs of their dinner sat on the table, the music in the distance, the excited buzz of a crowd ushering in the new year. But they were only a few months past the plague, and the gaping hole in the nobles district still leered like a wound despite the caution tape and the repairs. How many times had something gone wrong here? How many times he and Caspar been forced to pass each other in clinics, a nod of the head exchanged, understanding shared amongst bandages and blood? The Grande Cathedral felt like a safe haven, but that was about the only place. “I think you’re right,” Ric finally said, but it was directed into the bottom of his glass, not quite meeting Cas or Siri’s eyes, as if he were betraying his beloved new home by admitting to what he’d sensed all along. A writhing worry sitting leaden in his chest even as the city grasped at normalcy, average days between all the strange occurrences. Kerwon had never been like this. He gave an attempt at a joke: “Maybe it’s built on an ancient Garif burial ground.” Caspar chuckled noncommittally. He wouldn't admit that there was something wrong with Emillion — he couldn't. A part of him knew just how strange the city was, that there was nothing normal about the frequency with which disaster came to the city, both from outside the border and from within. But that knowledge was boxed away and shoved aside, somewhere in the recesses of his mind along with his relationship with his parents. Emillion had been, and would always be, the city of a young knight's dreams, and he had far too much tied to what it represented to go admitting it was anything but perfect. Instead, he would shrug it off or embrace it, as circumstances demanded, and chalk it all up to the kind of good old excitement every Sentinel dreamed of. Clearing his throat to break whatever introspective spell had seemed to have been cast upon the three Kerwonians, Caspar raised his glass in a toast. "Whatever this city seems like, it's brought Siri back to us. Here's to an interesting year." Because if there was something this city could promise, it was that. There was a brief flash if disapproval in Siri’s eyes as she eyed her old friends and their - not quite denial - but reluctance to voice agreement on the subject. She let the thought drop, sinking to murky depths; the spell was broken. Siri smiled and raised her glass to join in the toast. “Then for that I am grateful to it.” An interesting year, the words hung over their heads, a guillotine (the whoosh, whoosh thump sound). Siri ignored it, allowing it to sink along with the doubts about Emillion — she only remained afloat by clutching the echoes of Caspar and Rictor’s voices. It was enough. |