They told me to be who I wanted to be; Straia / any

[Falx]

He lands in grains of sand on his knees. His sister is standing across from him, her casual smirk still plastered on her face from the minute they had entered the border. She stands taller—taller than she ever had before—looking down at him with not even the tiniest bit of sadness. “Well ain’t that a relief we don’t gotta rule this dump?”

Falx rises with rage—if it weren’t for evolution his face would be a hue of red. He is shaking—she can see it in his movement. He has containing a sort of rage she has never seen before. In years of being together—years of being tied by invisible chains of sibling-hood, she has yet to see his anger build to such a degree that she swears steam is truly rolling from his flared nostrils.

“You have the odacity… the fucking nerve… to say this is a relief?” His voice is dripping with disdain and frustration. There is a hole in his stomach and a pinch in his heart that makes him feel uncomfortable to even look at her. She is why he is where he is, she is why he will never be more than a brother—a sibling in an otherwise dysfunctional land. He is going nowhere—nowhere, and this is what he has to live for.

She cowers back like a kitten caught beneath the jaws of Satan. Her eyes are blinking rapidly—her heart is pounding; he has never gotten mad at her. He has gotten irritated, yes. He has gotten frustrated, sure. He may have even gotten angry for moments before suddenly melting into his casual pool of chill and ease. He is a shark aggravated by bites and jabs of people—her. She has picked, kicked, hit, and yelled like a toddler and he has bottled all of it up like a grenade.

“Falx I—”

“Stop. Just fucking stop.” He snaps, not even giving her the opportunity to vouch. She always does this, she always changes the topic or relays the blame. She is a child, but he isn’t. He doesn’t need to deal with this and why should he? They aren’t really conjoined, he is free. “Don’t follow me.”

She opens her mouth—her tongue rolling softly against her lips as if the moistening is what will give her something to say. She is dry, an empty canvas always having relied on her brother to provide colour. Her brown eyes shift, uncomfortable and anxious, looking behind her over the dunes of sand. So simplistic around them—how minimal they are in their surroundings. “But Falx… I need you.”

He has already turned, disregarding her words like he disregards the sand beneath his feet. He trudges—no, marches. He remembers the grey mare, the mare who had met him in the field. He remembers the offer she had left for him before they had parted on neutral terms. He wants her—not her, what she had to offer. He wants all of that.

He doesn’t turn. He just listens to her voice, the last of her words I need you bouncing in his mind like ping pong. She will learn, they all need to—you are nothing if not great. She will find her own footing, rise to her own occasion like we all should and some day he might be able to look at her. Maybe even enjoy her company. Not now, though.
Not for a very long time.

The Chamber doesn’t take long to reach. She is exposed in her thick pine forest—the smell of their needles clinging to his nostrils like a new car freshener. She is beautiful, with mountains of extravagance in the distance and an open meeting ground in the pit of her home. He understands why Straia made her sound so good—the mare wasn’t lying. He arrives as the sun begins to set behind trees, stopping in the center of her home and waiting to be seen. It is time.

[Erebor]

We are at war. There will be scars.

He is everywhere, the steel-child, the boy made of iron. He wanders the Chamber restlessly, learning every corner. He is born to do it, sweeping through the trees like fog (or his mother), as present in the Chamber as the air. The heartbeat here is almost his (grandfather, grandfather) and it is loud in his ears wherever he goes. It follows him, echoing off the hollows of the rocks, slipping between the pine trees like a drumbeat.

And so it's no surprise that he is the first to find the newcomer. It is a good thing, he thinks, when he smells the new horse on the wind. He carries a slight whiff of sand and sun and warmth on his skin, mixed with something the young boy can't quite identify (it is god, but he doesn't know it). But the newcomer isn't redolent with it, isn't laced through with it that one truly committed to a kingdom would be. Not a diplomat, the boy decides, and that means possibly a new kingdom member.

Or an invader. But Erebor isn't worried about that.

The man stands right above the heartbeat. The princeling wonders if he can feel it yet, the thud-thud-thud of his grandfather beneath their feet. He notes with interest that this stallion has wings. He is not the first mythical that Erebor has seen, and the boy was not surprised at the first one in any case. Surprise is not an emotion he recognizes; he discerns, he accepts, and he does what is necessary based on that. The rest, really, is just details.

He approaches with an easy gait. He is still young, but there is something ancient about his bearing. He's ever the precocious child, older by far than his years, a true product of both of his parents. And he's the first in quite some time to be born without love, with two parents who came together purely for the good of their home. He is entirely black, sturdily built, but with a kind of grace that befits his position as a prince of the Chamber. Although he is not yet six months old, you'd never know it from the way he looks and acts.

"Greetings." he calls out as he approaches the stallion. His voice is uncommonly resonant and smooth for one as young as he is. He stops across from the newcomer, feeling the heart quake up through his hooves. He has a naturally military bearing, a straight posture that speaks of pride in his home. "Welcome to the Chamber." he offers with an easy smile. He is not normally one for charm and pleasantries, but he wants to welcome the newcomer in proper fashion. He has already learned the importance of charming the new people; only once you're comfortable can you afford to stop wasting time.

"I'm Erebor."

Erebor

Native Prince of the Chamber

warship x straia

[Straia]

Her son doesn’t value the heart the beats beneath their feet for the same reason Straia does. But then again, she hasn’t told him her reason yet. Warship had introduced the boy to the heart, and it was the right introduction to it. The heart belongs to the boy’s grandfather through Warship, though not through Straia. Straia’s family history in this land is something she only knows pieces of, something her father more or less stamped out of history when he took the throne. She is the last remaining piece of that once dynasty.

Oh, but the heart. She remembers her panther man. Still just a child herself when she met him – grizzled and ancient and so powerful. He had told her about the heart. How the Chamber had ripped it from his chest, how her chosen home was a cruel mistress. Straia had always known that her life would be dedicated to this kingdom, but it was that day she truly understood that likely, she would be asked to give her life for this kingdom. That was the day she accepted that fate with an easy grace that only the dedicated can truly know. So far the Chamber has taken her sisters from her, and in some ways her father (not that they have ever been close). Eventually it will take everything else.

She’s weaving through the pine trees when she spots him, the stallion from the field. He is different now, in some intangible way that she can’t quite put her finger on. And her son, true to form, is already making his way over to the stranger to greet him. She waits a moment longer before coming out of the pines herself. They were truly starting to regrow now, looking more like their old selves than they had in the years since the disaster. There was much left to regrow, but she found she was less often streaked with ash than in those first few years.

It doesn’t take her long to close the distance two the two stallions. More boys. She was absolutely and endless surrounded by them. There are worse things in life, certainly, but sometimes she thinks she might as well rule the Tundra. Ah well. Men were infinitely more reasonable anyway. “Falx,” she says, recalling their brief meeting in the field. “What a surprise.” She hadn’t necessarily expected to see him, but it’s also not entirely a surprise. “How are you? And may I ask, where is your other half?” She remembers the girl too – Falx had been the more composed and polite half. But still, they had seemed inseparable at the time, despite their obvious differences.

straia

queen of the chamber