i am the mace, the map, the fall and the high

Rune never likes it when Reave ventures into the forest, though Reave rarely pays him any heed. He knows it’s because the bird can’t see him from the sky. He pretends it’s for protection, but Reave knows better. Now more than ever he needs the bird’s guidance, even if he does not want it most days. Something important had splintered inside him when he’d returned from the mountain to find the south fallen into the sea. Something that hadn’t been returned to him in the form of a giant raptor like it had last time.

Instead of taking to the sky, the harpy eagle has chosen to perch on the bone jutting from Reave’s hip, a silent sentinel as he bobs with the stallion’s every step. Reave hardly notices, too used to the bird’s weight to pay him much heed. He had grown into maturity now, and the bones’ growth had finally slowed so his skin no longer splits as it once had. He knows one day very soon it would freeze entirely, caught in the timelock of his immortality.

It’s the one-sided conversation that catches his attention first. Sound carries strangely in these trees, so at first he isn’t quite certain what he hears. But as he sends his senses to find the small eyes interspersed liberally through these trees, he soon locates the source. A familiar source.

How curious.

She had chosen not to follow either of them all those years ago, but Reave doesn’t care about that. After all, he has spent much of his time running from his own demons. Yet even after all this time, he still finds himself wanting to know more about the spotted mare. There is something there, lingering beneath the surface. Something he hadn’t been able to uncover in their short conversation in the field.

And if ever there was a weakness Reave possessed, it’s that of curiosity.

He doesn’t hide his footsteps as he approaches, nor does he hide the roguish grin that curls his lips when she comes into sight. “Hello Nereza,” he greets, blue eyes gleaming behind the carved bone of his glowing mask. Carvings that tell the story of his recent hubris. His gaze skims over the roses creeping around her, idle amusement in the roaming stare. “You’ve been keeping yourself busy, I see.”

i am the mace, the map, the fall and the high

They both had been barely more than children when they first met, but Reave had not felt so young in a long time. Of course, it is difficult to cling to childhood when one is forced to watch their mother die in their first breaths of life. It had been the first and cruelest lesson of his life. One that had shaped his future and infused reckless disregard so deeply into his soul.

The carnivorous garden he enjoys so much had eventually brought her back to him, but by then his fate had already been sealed.

His blue eyes spark as he watches the bark peel from the trees and roses bloom so ferociously between them. His grin widens with delight, though there is something almost feral to that wicked curve of his lips. He should undoubtedly be more cautious, but he would not be Reave if he were. Instead he stretches forward, muzzle brushing the petals of one large bloom.

When he pulls back, his eyes lift to hers with an intensity that serves only to sharpen the smile on his lips. “Oh, I have many ideas.” His eyes shift away to scan her handiwork with a deceptively idle curiosity. When he speaks again, his low voice is threaded with amusement. “Ok then, Rez." He smirks. "So, no longer a weed, are you?”

He tilts his head, considering her with open curiosity, lips still tipped up at the corners. He’d been brighter the last time they met, but now there is an undeniable threat of ruin coursing through him. A dark story written into the lines now carved across his exposed bone. Her question had given him pause, but not for long. “That depends on your perspective, I suppose,” he replies thoughtfully, eyes gleaming. “I wouldn’t say poorly, but you might disagree.”

i am the mace, the map, the fall and the high

Reave’s humor is a dark shadow to the brightness of hers, despite her attempt to quell it before it escapes on a snort. His eyes flick to the large yellow flowers that sprout rapidly, betraying her disbelief. They flow from flower to seed in the span of heartbeats before the cottony heads gust away. His grin only widens as his gaze returns to her, his delight clear behind the dim glow of his mask.

“An argument of semantics,” he replies easily, feet shifting beneath him, as restless as her wings. He has never been very good at standing still. “In the end they’re the same thing with different labels.”

A lesson he had learned long ago. The same lesson she’d been set to learn at their last meeting when this argument had first begun.

Tilting his head, he watches her thoughtfully as she continues, the giant roses shrinking back into the earth around them. Memories flit around her of a time spent with little more than a capricious companion for company. One nothing like his own steadfast companion, constantly whispering advice in his thoughts. Constantly impressing his lost morality back onto him.

It’s nearly a lost cause. One that Rune despairs of far too often, in his gruff, irritating way.

Lifting one brow at her self-effacing question, Reave argues, “As much right as anyone has to an opinion, I imagine.”

Her next question surprises him briefly, but just as quickly brings a grin to his lips. There is something decidedly devilish in that expression, beneath the pleasure that suffuses it. “You are always welcome in Nerine,” he replies, then he chuckles. “And it even has the benefit of not being underwater.”