"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
05-22-2018, 03:10 PM (This post was last modified: 05-22-2018, 04:21 PM by Leilan.)
Leilan
Your beauty is beyond compare - oh, if I could hear but one song from you
I shall hail thee Queen of Birds...
It's only been a few days or so since he finally got declared the official escape by the fairies - but he's got to visit Brennen first above all else... because although he is a free man again, he feels that maybe he should return.
After his stay in the forest (boring, but exciting, because what would happen if they found out he'd up and left for real?), he'd quickly made the trek to the mountain, and now he has about just as quickly headed north, no time for stopping until he's at the sea's edge. He doesn't wait for low tide - hey, he wants to get rid of the Loess smell - instead, after taking a rest to catch his breath, he swims right through.
To emphasize his leaving the hill kingdom, he rolls about in the sand to dry and get the sea-salty sand sticking to his mane - the smell is much better. Also, he's going to rub it in Arthas' nose in a bit. At least, he hopes so.
He shakes himself, and calls for Brennen from the beach. He's sure that the parrots (who apparently think he's a stranger again after being gone for 5 months) will aid in his calling, portraying the message that someone is on the beach.
He's got some explaining to do.
there's something here that doesn't make sense
let's go and poke it with a stick
@[Brennen]
Two things I know I can make: pretty kids, and people mad.
05-27-2018, 03:32 PM (This post was last modified: 05-27-2018, 03:33 PM by Brennen.)
They had, of course, noticed Leilan’s absence and connected it to Loess. It had been a constant piece of Brennen’s worry over the current political climate, but not the top of the list. With the other things happening, he’s pretty sure that the other stallion will understand why he wasn’t the first priority. Jesper was in far more danger in Sylva, and that on top of the fact that Alonwy and Khaeli are missing. Still, the bay king had a mental countdown of the time until he could challenge Arthas for the return of his Brother, and an itchy longing to face the King of Loess on the battlefield and show him the consequences of messing with any part of Brennen’s extended family.
But a month before that fast-approaching date, he follows the summons of the parrots to the beach to meet a stranger, but finds roan stallion there instead, rolling around in the sand. He waits until the younger stallion gains his feet once more before calling a greeting and meandering over, his amber gaze searching for any sign that he had come to even the slightest bit of harm at the hands of Arthas. While he is looking his body is tense, his posture worried, but the bay visibly relaxes when it becomes clear that Leilan is unharmed, though his eyes are still shadowed by the suspicious his grandson will not return in the same peak of health.
“Leilan,” he greets as he reaches him, a wisp of a smile passing across his face. ”I am glad to see you home safely, though I was looking forward to challenging Arthas and giving him reason to pause and reconsider before he messes with Ischia again.” though, the king considers, there’s no reason he can’t challenge Loess’ ruler to a battle just to trounce him around the field.
Ooc; I’m so sorry this has taken so long, it was so busy moving into camp!
Your beauty is beyond compare - oh, if I could hear but one song from you
I shall hail thee Queen of Birds...
The bay roan doesn’t have to wait long; in fact it kind of reminds him of his first visit to Ischia. Although that time his mother had sent him and he had come to hear about the mystery she had not cared to explain; today he wants to reverse the roles. A bit at least. He has something to say himself after all.
Soon as he stands, the bay winged stallion walks up closer to the gold-streaked red one, assessing him as if hoping for an excuse to beat the living hell out of Arthas for it - alas, Leilan would not have been such a willing prisoner if the dapple grey so much had tried to touch him, so he left the kingdom more out of spite and hurt pride than anything else.
Which is why he thinks he should return and smooth things over, if Brenne will allow it.
”That thought crossed my mind more than once before, too. Maybe some fairy put a ‘hit me’ mark on him, you think?” he pikes - oh, really a few months isn’t long enough to rock him off the joker boat. There’s not much that can shake him; although they did get under his skin eventually.
”To be honest, it’s only their alliance with Sylva I think is really dangerous.” he slides in his assessment of the situation. ”Since me, Arthas has recruited two more stallions, one of which barely an adult with the smell of Tephra still on him, the other a former Nerinian, but I guess he is potentially dangerous. Oh and - I believe Arthas was trying to convince me to stay as a resident more than he wanted me as a defiant prisoner, so there’s that too.” he adds in. Truth be told, it would be almost too easy to blend back in, and pretend he just escaped for to gain a proper rank and stop them from calling him prisoner all the time.
”It’s kind of weird though. They kept referring to Ischia stealing from them multiple times as if this steal of me was some power show-off, but when I talked to them about it, their diplomat Taria said something about stealing from Sylva, so the Loessians truly think themselves one with their neighbours. I kinda doubt anyone from the forest would care so deeply for those in the hills but, perhaps Jesper knows. I haven’t yet had the opportunity to look around Sylva myself.” he muses. It did really seem strange to him as he had told them multiple times. But perhaps Brennen knew of more steals than he. Or something else he had missed.
there's something here that doesn't make sense
let's go and poke it with a stick
@[Brennen]
Two things I know I can make: pretty kids, and people mad.
Despite his worried thoughts and classically solemn demeanor, Leilan’s softly lobbed joke is enough to draw a flash of a smile from Brennen, who lets the expression linger without any other comment for a moment, enjoying the flash of pure amusement as the rarity it is nowadays, before nodding and letting his smile fade back into his stoic outlook when the conversation flows into serious topics - that of Arthas who Brennen does not find threatening at all and Modicum Mortem, the Sylvan whom the bay King does find threatening if only because he believes the self-styled ‘Clown King’ might be truly mad.
Leilan mentions something Brennen himself has been puzzling over - supposedly the roan stallion had been stolen in response to steals made by Ischia, but as far as Brennen has been able to tell they have been unsuccessful in taking anyone or anything from Loess, though not necessarily from lack of trying. Nothing too overt, though, or even a hard press on their part. They had been trading back-and-forth with Sylva, but would two dark Kingdoms be able to stay aligned as tightly as, say, Nerine and Ischia? Or Tephra and Hyaline? What would draw them together in such a a way?
“I do hope Jesper will have more information about Sylva for us. The time of his return is quickly approaching, and we will go to retrieve him if even a single extra day passes.” Nobody in Ischia believes that Jesper is as unharmed as Leilan, though they have had no cause yet to stir up trouble by going to get him early. His mind travels back to some of the other stallion’s first words - the ones about Arthas trying to recruit him - and they linger in his mind. Was Leilan looking to go on a spying mission like Jesper? Certainly he appears unharmed now, but Brennen is uncertain of the value of a Brother in Loess if Arthas is as harmless as Leilan seems to think he probably is - and he’s certainly not going to put the idea in the boy’s head if he hasn’t already had it himself. So instead of asking, Brennen smiles slightly again and says, “Well, we’re quite glad you are home. I have a feeling things are not going to stay as quiet as they have been recently.”
Your beauty is beyond compare - oh, if I could hear but one song from you
I shall hail thee Queen of Birds...
The bay winged man takes his report without too much comment, nodding here and there, frowning where Leilan would have also. He was right then, that besides Cagney’s one attempt on taking Taria, nothing else had happened. ”Taria did mention that Arthas simply succeeded where we failed, so I guess they took offense over every single attempt. Long toes, if you ask me.” he shakes his head. Well, it’s not like he’d been the nicest either, in the end.
Brennen’s casual comment about Jesper makes the roan shift in place. ”I meant to visit him, see how he holds up. Taria might have escorted me into Sylva if I’d been able to keep up the niceties. Truth is they got under my skin before that, so I walked out.” he explains.
Brennen admits he8d rather have the roan here, and although Leilan should agree, he does not. ”Regardless of that, I don’t like the idea of sitting here waiting for a storm. I suppose I could tell them I’ve just escaped to earn myself a rank above that of prisoner, and get back there on my own terms. I don’t know if it would help to try and take a liaison-like position, but my stay there, as long as I were unharmed, probably helps prevent Nerinian attacks on them, too.” Especially with his mother holding the semi-queenlike position she does now, even if she is quick to give the title to another, because she does not like to stand in the full sun but rather pulls her strings from the shades - she’ll probably keep doing something important, like advise the new Leviathan queen. ”Perhaps I can convince Arthas it would gain him a cease-fire with Ischia as well. I’d have my own conditions of ‘turning coat’ of course, one of them being able to move to the common lands freely and gaining proper citizen rights like any other Loessian. But unlike Jesper did with Sylva, I won’t accept everything they throw at me, so it may turn out that I won’t stay and gain nothing... But Brennen, how badly do you think we need eyes and ears in that corner of Beqanna?”
Because that’s what it would all be about, in the end. If another Ischian can meet with him anywhere in Beqanna or he could even go to Hyaline and meet a Nerinian girl there, he would be able to report. Perhaps there should even be a ruse of a falling-out between him and Brennen, since the Loessians know he is a loyal man and would rather keep his word than leave the Brotherhood for another king. But those are details for later concern. Leilan is the only one in a plausible position to try and work his way into Loess, and as long as there is no torture involved and he is able to move around freely, he should be able to live with that change. He’s not one to confine himself to a tropical island anyway, after all.
there's something here that doesn't make sense
let's go and poke it with a stick
@[Brennen]
Two things I know I can make: pretty kids, and people mad.
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