"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
Everdeen has this underlying need to be noticed, to do good for someone but in a selfish way. Her mother had taught her to be selfish and she was one of eight full-blooded siblings, it's hard to get any attention. Maybe all of her problems stemmed from parenting issues but sometimes there's just no helping a diseased mind. She has no idea what she is doing but pledging herself to the Valley she decided to be somewhat useful.
What more perfect of a way to meet a potential play-thing than kingdom visits?
The most logical plan was to start with Forbidden Dale, it was only a slight trek up the mountain and the gray tobiano was no stranger to travel. She had spent most of her adult, albeit short, life on the road. Traveling allowed her to think about her aspirations and goals in life. As she turns to the leave the Valley, the thick vegetation quietly rippling against her hooves she glances at the magical tree. "I'll be back, beautiful," she says to herself, she's not visited the tree but it's branches entice her with each day she stays in the Valley. Through Gemstone Ridge's edge, forward to Silver Cove's rocky grade and finally she arrives to the Dale.
The gray and white mare is quite the looker but she does not draw open attention to herself, her amber eyes peering from beneath a charcoal forelock. She would pleasantly wait for someone to greet her or worse, run her off - she has not been forced to fight and momentarily she mulls that idea over. War? Army? She is sure at some point she'll be required to get some formal training with the recent conversations circulating. That's for a different time though, for now we wait.
Spring blooms across the land, thawing his cold bones and revitalizing him.
For once, he is solid and whole as he runs across the kingdom. He shows no traces of transparency and doesn’t hover above the sloping grounds. He is as he was born: flesh and bone and muscle. It feels good, too. The young stallion breathes heavily as his legs coil and release with each stride. He can’t focus on anything but the task at hoof as he makes his way across the kingdom. Each rock and dip in the ground garners his full attention. Ramiel’s glad to relinquish his mind to any state other than its usual fullness. He’s happy not to think about ghosts and family and the load of his own responsibilities, at least for a spell. It’s a relief to feel his own weight being held down by gravity and his own volition rather than the heaviness of the crown atop his head.
It can’t last for long, of course, but it’s enough to recharge him.
He slows from a gallop to a canter, then further from a trot to a walk. He means to make his way to the river for refreshment after such punishing exercise, but a foreign smell diverts his path to its source. Fortunately, it’s still cool enough that he isn’t completely doused in sweat when he sees the stranger topping a hill, but his coat does glisten under the bright spring sun. The Dale has had a string of visits from the other lands lately, and Ramiel is starting to learn the distinctively scent of each one. He’s meant to travel to all of them alongside the diplomats in order to see them for himself, but winter had stunted many of their plans. He realizes he cannot place this scent, however. Another one to learn, he thinks, moving upwards towards the other.
Ramiel isn’t even halfway up the hill when he realizes his own exhaustion. His run had taken the wind out of his sails, at least physically. He feels the familiar creeping sensation of his flesh fading away as he becomes opaque. Now, the steep incline is hardly a challenge at all. He floats up the lush hillside, rising to meet the diplomat with an easy smile when he can see her. “Hello and welcome to the Dale.” Still rather thirsty, his voice sounds gravelly and uneven in the fresh air. Almost spooky, he thinks, grinning inwardly. “I’m Ramiel,” he says, settling himself back firmly on the ground. The foreigner is quite pretty, but he is sure she is here on business, so he keeps his smile more polite than appreciative. “What can I do for you?”
She can hear the beating of hooves against a hillside but her eyes have deceived her, she cannot spot anyone for quite some time. Perhaps it was the fog rising, spring mornings are refreshing and in the right time of day a lighter horse (like herself) could easily slip an untrained radar. She is surprised that for her arrival not being very long that someone has already started her way; in her own kingdom it had literally taken days for someone to notice her.
She finally sees a stallion, at first she thinks her eyes are playing a trick; perhaps sleep deprivation from traveling through the night but a second blink and he appears. A handsome gray who was quite welcoming. "Oh," she says in a 'is he talking to me? really?' tone, "Hi. I'm Everdeen, thank you for being so kind. I'm from the Valley and just curious about your home here. I'm already impressed...I waited days when I joined my home to be greeted." She blushes at the thought of how she may be embarrassing her King, Demian, by accidentally slipping their mannerisms. She wasn't sure how this entire thing went but perhaps by the end of her trip around the world she would be schooled.
"I'm new to all of this, what makes the Dale special? Who rules here? What are your members responsibilities? How do you feel about all the change of hands recently? Oh," she says again, batting her eyelashes as she dips her head a little lower, "Sorry about the impromptu interview, just curious." She thinks over about what all she's just said, how suspicious she must sound or worse; how ignorant. What will this man think of her? Of the Valley?!
She blinks forcefully, as if she’s not sure what she’s seen, when he appears. Her reaction amuses him (as it was meant to) and he smirks, albeit gently. He’s allowed to do so little for his own enjoyment; so rarely is he able to do something without the kingdom necessarily gaining anything, that it’s quite the novelty act when he can. Of course, he doesn’t mean to scare Everdeen. He’s hardly cruel enough to actually mean to frighten anyone. But that’s not to say he wouldn’t chuckle if she had jumped even a little more.
She doesn’t, but she does seem rather taken aback by his greeting. His brow creases in confusion when she calls him kind. Hadn’t his been quite the normal greeting? It makes him wonder how the other kingdoms are treating their visiting diplomats these days if his welcome had been out of the ordinary. He doesn’t know that Everdeen is relatively new to this whole peacekeeping thing – if he had, perhaps he might have understood her delighted surprise. Ramiel smiles again when she explains herself further, explains more about her chosen home than she might realize. So the Valley is slow to attend to those who wandered into its borders? Interesting, to some degree. It’s always nice to know the varying amounts of activity of the other kingdoms, after all.
“A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Everdeen.” The grey stallion nods his head, cementing his greeting. “Well the Dale has always been rather fond of visitors. Perhaps we’re simply more enthusiastic about foreign company than the Valley.” He grins, golden eyes shining mischievously. If the grey paint knows anything of her home, she will get the joke. The Valley has never fully embraced anyone outside of its own members that he’s aware of; the murder pit sculpted by the will of one pink queen is only the most recent example of their exclusions.
She moves on quickly after that, revealing herself to indeed being new in her role as a diplomat. Ramiel isn’t shocked by this, but the barrage of questions spilling from her mouth soon after are a surprise. His eyes widen, teasing her with the shock on his face. But Everdeen dips her head, looking sorry for her own eagerness. Not wanting the pretty lady to feel abashed, Ramiel is more than happy to answer all her questions and assuage her worry. And if it will coax a smile from her, well, he’ll consider it a bonus.
“No harm done, Everdeen. We seem to share the same wild curiosity.” He says, and means it. He’s wanted to dissect the world and learn its inner workings since he was born into it. “The Dale is special because it is like a family (not to mention the fact that half of us are actually related). We put our needs as a whole before those of the individual.” Mostly true, or at least it’s what he wants to convey to the outside world still. “We are like most other kingdoms I think. We have an army and a peace-keeping caste, as far as member responsibilities go.” One question stumps even him, though, so he asks. “Which kingdoms have changed hands lately?” Is there something he needs to know about? As to the last question on her list, he answers easily, some part of his youthful pride shining through his words. “And as far as our ruler…you’re looking at him.”
Although she had not met many from other lands yet, out of the handful so far Ramiel has been her favorite. He is warm and welcoming, she questions herself frequently why she is drawn to the Valley - it is something she, herself, isn't sure of yet. When you're not knowledgable on other things you follow your intuition until you know better.
"Learning is the most important part of life in my honest opinion," she says, without being asked as a fact; her philosophy if you will. A family seems so foreign to me but I can respect that system if it works for you and the other Dalean's," she says, not intending to sound pitiful she had a mother and several other full siblings (seven, actually) but her family was not functional. Her family was chaotic and strange. "From first impression you're a great King, Ramiel," she says without hesitation, a small flirtatious undertone but no true harm. Her amber doe eyes light up with joy, she is perhaps the most cheerful Valley member in recent years...or ever. She has claws and teeth but she is rather reserved in using them, grand schemes don't become grand if you constantly reveal portions.
"Well, I still have a few Kingdoms to travel to but we have a new king; Demian, Eight is still around but his business there I'm not certain of," she omits that a group of power and magic were meeting when she left, "Demian is level-headed and handling the kingdom well, we've established a new ranking system and it seems to be truly working for the Valley. The Amazons I have heard changed hands too, Scorch had grown ill and Lagertha has taken over - I venture there next, infact," she reveals, perhaps ignorantly to someone not of her own kingdom. Ramiel is charming in the way that Everdeen would likely tell him everything he wanted to know but for now she is still relatively tight lipped.
There is a fine line between flirting and divulging pertinent information, but first you must be likable so others trust you.
If he had known her opinion of him, it would have made him happier than anything else she could have possibly said. It doesn’t come naturally for him to be so. It might have, at one time (before Carnage had pulled him from his childhood and sent him careening down the most dangerous path possible). But now, he is intimately familiar with the cold fingers of death’s grasp. He welcomes it daily, feels the trembling touch of the Grim Reaper every time he becomes a ghost. He flirts with the reaper, lets it think he’s committed himself to the edge of the scythe, but he pulls back each time. Surely, one time, it won’t let him go so easily. One time, death might claim him for its own.
So her description would have pleased him greatly. It would have meant that he hadn’t completely fallen off the wagon, hadn’t fully succumbed to the darkness that lingers in his chest like a bubble that will someday burst, spilling and spreading throughout him. Even now, he struggles to be like his angelic father; he thinks he’ll never be all good and golden like Tiphon.
Ramiel tries not to think about his failures before they’ve occurred, but sometimes, he can’t help himself.
For her part, Everdeen keeps the darkness at bay by her presence. He finds himself rather enjoying their meeting – far different than most dry, stale diplomatic approaches he’s had to endure already. He nods his large head in agreement when she comments on learning. Perhaps the only thing that could get in the way of his life-long quest for knowledge is his pride. Just like the darkness, though, he’ll keep it away as long as he can. “We’ve a man you would be most fond of, then. He’s a different sort of fellow, but he’s also the smartest man I know.” His lips quirk upwards when he thinks of Weir, thinks of what he’d be saying right now if he were here. Probably he’d tell them the genus and species of wildflowers growing just behind Everdeen, or maybe the life expectancy of the tree to their right.
The grey stallion nods again, gently, when she compliments him. He doesn’t expect to be told he’s doing a fine job or that he’s the right man for it, but it’s nice to hear. Besides, his pride swells at her words, taking to them like a moth to a flame. “Thank you. And you are a refreshing change, as far as Valley diplomats go.” He can’t help but poke the bear a bit, even if she perhaps tires of the joke. He doubts it will be enough to sway her to the Dale, but one never knows. Talk soon turns to actual diplomacy, and he straightens, intent on catching every detail she lets slip. And as nice and pretty and eloquent as she may be, he thinks she’ll let a few slip. Ramiel isn’t disappointed when she does, but he’s surprised by some of the changes. So a new king for the Valley – not immediately important to the Dale, but cause for consideration. The news from the Amazons is far more interesting – and distressing.
It doesn’t show on his face, however. His mind is whirring as he tries to focus on the conversation while wondering at its impacts. Will their alliance still hold? It had been their only strong tie to another kingdom. If Lagertha has broken their ties, they are basically a sitting duck. Ramiel tries to smile when he looks back at Everdeen, but it doesn’t last long. He has half a mind to go with her to the Amazons immediately, but his mind catches up with his heart, and he thinks better of it. “I will be there soon myself,” he says, as if he’d planned it a long time ago rather than a minute ago in response to her words. ”Perhaps we’ll see each other again.” The young king wishes he didn’t have to wrap this up so quickly – he’s rather enjoying their conversation – but already he’s planning who to take with him in his head. He smiles at her, though. “Is there anything else you need or would like to know, Everdeen? If not, I wish you luck on your journey.”
