"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
09-07-2016, 04:03 PM (This post was last modified: 09-07-2016, 04:04 PM by Ashley.)
One born with magic who, one day after many, many years suddenly finds himself without his abilities would not make for a very happy individual. Even more so if this particular individual had tasted of power and then found himself thrust aside from his power in any capacity. Ashley found himself among those few who understood the loss of both, and the agitation of not having a purpose was grating on him hard.
He did not know where he fit in, or what would best suit him; he had aligned himself to the place that he had always bled for; and had died for twice. But the old alliances were dead, as were the lands themselves, and so when an old man finds himself wiling away the hours looking for something to do, he will eventually get restless. And so this is what has become of him. Ashley spends his days walking. Breathing. Cursing his situation. He is looking for something new; someone he perhaps once knew an age ago.
He seeks an audience with the great King Eight.
ashley
how many times can I break ‘til I shatter?
(Really sorry its so short. Looking for some new story bits for him and I’m running out of the angsty “I don’t have my magic anymore” posts)
Immortality is such an outlandish thing. To live forever – to never wrinkle, never age, never mar your skin with the aches of life. To cheat death year after year – why, you would think it exciting, but instead it grows old. You, Ashley, should know. The life of a magician is never quite what it seems. While others may pine for the power, the chance to wield the world in their hands – they hardly realize that it becomes a chore. Your life becomes one long stretch of curling days after the next. You bide your time becoming a king, fathering children, creating friendships, wreaking havoc, fighting wars – you do whatever you may find feasible to keep you occupied. But how long can that last? How long can healing and hurting and battling and conjuring really tide you over?
Eight had lost his kingdom, and the magic inside his veins. It was strange, really, how fickle life could be. How one moment you are content to have everything, and the next moment the rug is pulled up from under you – you are left with dust in your mouth and your palms clutching at empty air. You are orphaned by your body and your land, with no true reason to continue. For, who are you without your power and your home?
Odder even, was that Eight did not quite seem to care so much. For so long, he had been characterized as the magician king. He was no Carnage, no ‘god among them all’- but he was certainly one of the few magicians who resiliently stayed in Beqanna, one of the few to seek for bartering, for protection, for battle. For so long, Eight was sought for the power he controlled. And now? Now he was simply like the rest of them, no better (but perhaps worse).
He is in the meadow when you find him, unadorned save for the large, black wings that were left to him. Have you two met? Perhaps only Beqanna knows. With magic and the ever undulating life that comes with it, it is far to easy to meet, greet, and never remember again.
He looks towards you with a small nod. “Come to see the clamoring of lost souls and glaring realization of normalcy? “
∞
and now the storm is coming, the storm is coming in
“Normalcy staring me in the face is a slap to the reality of my life, Eight. You above all should know that.”
Ashley doesn’t wait to be introduced to him—for yes indeed, they have known each other. They have gone into battle together. But perhaps, for the old king had had nothing but his own memories to recommend him while he was stuck in stasis for years; perhaps his memories are all he has to push him forward in this world. The thought that someday he might reach out his hand and take back what was once his, it drove him harder than anything else. Aiding Ea in their quest for a new home; it was what helped him get sleep at night.
The taste of power, and of magic—it was like a drug high to him. The rich blue blood he’d been born with, suddenly stripped of him, his dignity with it. Those remembered Eight. They remembered Carnage. Who was left to remember him? He would take back that destiny that was so taken from him from when his family had locked him away. Some things could not--would not--be forgotten, and as Ashley’s thought settled on this, he looked across the meadow at the ones who looked as lost as he felt. But he was not one of them, was he? Had he ever really understood what it was like to be normal?
Is that something he should learn how to do? How to know them and their plight? Maybe he was not as above them as he had originally thought…for it was by sheer dumb luck that had released the magic that had held him. In reality, what right did he have? His realization did nothing but darken his mood as he looked down and took in the fresh sheets of fallen snow, taking some in his mouth and crunching it in his teeth for moisture. With the rivers frozen over, water was hard to come by.
“It’s been a lifetime, friend. Name’s Ashley, in case old age has crept in and stolen your memory, as well as your magic.”
It is not uncommon for magician’s lives to be tied into one another. When you live for forever, how can you avoid one another? It is rare, though, for them to stick around for long. Magicians, as you know, are capricious creatures, coming and going as they please. They carry no true ties to timelines or terrains. They bend the world as they will, they eke away their days here and there, with no real contingency of aging. It is dangerously easy to get lost like this – in a limbo of here and there, in between Beqanna and the unknown. It is so simple to realize that there is little in the world that can stop you, and oh so easy to lose sight of something to do.
He exhales sharply, a mix of a scoff and a laugh - “Indeed it is. Never felt like this before, that’s for sure.”
Even in normalcy, there retains some form of power. No, you no longer have that electric blood in your veins – but you can feel it, can’t you? It’s hiding there, just below the surface, threatening to burst out at a moment’s notice. You may not be able to wield the might that you once had, but you can taste it – feel it – breathe it. You know it’s there. You still aren’t normal, Ashley. You never can be. Even if your magic were to never return again – there is no going back. There is no ordinary once you have been, or are, a magician. There is always that tickle in the back of your mind, in the canals of your veins – that you are powerful, you are potent.
And Eight? What did Eight feel about it all? He could relate to the loss of magic in Beqanna – he, like everyone else, had been faced with the whiplash of loss. He was ordinary – with nothing but his thick, black wings remaining. But did he feel sorrow? Did he feel loss? Who could really say? It was a long way to fall, but perhaps being ordinary at best would be good for now. Perhaps his loss of magic has given him just a brief glimpse of what it would be like to not be who he is.
He jerks his head towards you in greeting, his mind searching to place the name. “Ah, Ashley. King of the Dale once so long ago, no?” It indeed had been ages, eons, since Eight had seen your face. “And what brings you back around now?”
∞
and now the storm is coming, the storm is coming in
An angry laugh escapes Ashley’s own mouth as he takes in Eight’s quip. “No, I cannot say that it has ever been this bad. That is exactly what I told one of yours, I believe. Gunsynd was his name.” He took in the shadows that were being casted by the two men as they stood there, almost stuck in a timewarp. Time said they should have died long ago, life and love said they should have stuck with their families, and yet, Eight is absolutely correct, you’re born, you live, and you die.
Except if you are born of magic.
Those with their blood have their children, and will ultimately outlive them. They will never dip their head to touch the mortal realm, no matter what the world throws at them. Once you have touched power, there really is no going back, except to feel the loss of what used to be. And Ashley found that he regretted many of his actions from the days way back when—the wars, the invasions, what had they been for? He had birthed his kids and fought for his family, and they had all either died or betrayed him anyway. All for the sake of a power that could not be theirs unless they were born of his blood. And only two more, to his recollection, had been. It had been one of those two who had done this to him, and thus was also responsible—by extension—for why he was as he is now.
“Once and always of the land to which I was birthed. As are you, I’m sure, once and forever of the Valley. As to why I’m back… blame Charlemagne. Being born out of Stasis of the limestone statue she cast me in—the magic drained away, and I collapsed onto the Beach as if it had been a rebirth. And I woke up…”he coughs, looking over his body. “…like this.”
Is your anger rightful? Is anyone’s? Should the horses be Beqanna be forced to reckon with the rage of the fairy? Had they not been fairing well on their own? What had they done to wrongly shape the course of her history? Eight bobbed his head and let a out a laughing grunt of his own. “Can’t say I’ve ever been quite so normal before. Strange, very strange.”
Strange, yes - but unwelcome? Who could say. The magicians of Beqanna had always been sought out - but only in times of need. When war riddled the land, when others needed mending, when women wanted to have pretty foals. It was always the magicians they beseeched to. Now? Now everyone was the same. Now, there were no knocks on Eight’s door for favors in exchange for branding, for children he would never meet, for battles that he cared little of the outcome.
Eight nodded as you riddled off your short epitaph. It was a knack of magicians to put short work to their history - why stretch out the details, the eons you have lived, when only now matters? “A blessing in disguise, then?” He questioned of the loss of magic - the very thing which gave you life again, had also deemed you powerless. A rebirth, but of an unfortunate event. “ And now what will you do, Ashley - once king of the Dale, once frozen in time - where in the world will you go next?”
Ashley weighs the words that Eight throws his way. It almost as if he has gone into receptive mode, allowing the old buckskin to rattle on about his own history, and yet there was not much to say about the one born of old dark blood. He tilted his head, and took a slight step back, giving forethought to his words, weighing their importance. What does one say to a former King of Night? “Would you say you’d ever go back? To the way you were? Or are you content to remain as you are? You do not seem to crave the power that you once held.”
And was that true? There always seemed more than met the eye where Eight was concerned. History has a way of only telling one side of the story, and it still remains, that Ashley was aware of the history of his days, and yet the last 100 years—give or take—had been completely erased from his scope of vision. Without his abilities to discern the comings and goings of history and of mind reading, he only had face value to contend with—and that was about as useless as a cork screw and an empty bottle. With someone who once held so much, and now was left with so little—you learn to never accept what you are told entirely.
Keeping this in mind, Ashley flicked his ears to take in the last words of the old King as he reached back to his rump to nip the salt out of his pelt. Using his nose to straighten out the fur there, he turns back to his companion, and levels him with amber eyes that held a silent amber glow. “My loyalties lie with country first and foremost. I have followed Ea north, to be of whatever help I can to her. How about you? Do you seek yourself a new kingdom?”
