 We are at war. There will be scars.
This is what it feels like to be endlessly interested.
Erebor finds himself sleeping little, instead preferring to spend his time learning his land. And yes, it is his, a little bit moreso than it is for the average resident of the Chamber. He takes his responsibilities as Prince seriously; he considers himself to be more responsible for what happens to the Chamber, more invested in its future because of the title he holds. He would push himself like this even if he were not born to this, but with the added pressure of his birthright, there's really no question.
He is so terribly young, and yet so terribly precocious. He wants to know everything, to learn everything there is to know about the Chamber, about Beqanna, about family history, the history of other kingdoms, how to fight, how to be a diplomat – it's like he's decided that he's going to give himself the education of any good prince.
And part of that education is to speak at length with his mother.
He is with her frequently, but not constantly. He is not a dependent child in the slightest, despite being so young. But he enjoys her company, likes the knowledge she has to share and the stories that she can tell him. And so today he seeks her out, looking (always) to know more, to be more, to be better because the Chamber deserves no less.
He finds her in the first place he looks, among the pine forests. They share a love of this place, and it makes him happy to see that it is regrowing a bit more each day. He has no memory of the forces that ripped it apart, but he can recognize that the forest was wounded, and he longs to see it at its full strength. He knows it would be magnificent.
He falls in line with Straia, nodding to her quietly. "Mother." he greets, his voice flat. He is not a sentimental one, he does like his mother, but he knows she knows that, and therefore it isn't efficient to say it. He doesn't need to take time on pleasantries with his family; he is sure that he will waste enough time being charming to those outside his family, the last thing he needs is to waste even more being charming to those within.
He looks at the trees that loom like statues around them, and then he speaks. "Mother, I was wondering about the pine forests. What were they like before they became this? And what made them this way?" His voice is bright with curiosity, but his demeanor is not excited. He is stoic in all situations – a trait that will no doubt serve him well in his life.
And with uncharacteristic poise for a less-than-yearling colt, he calmly awaits her answer. Erebor Native Prince of the Chamber warship x straia
i want the world in my hands
 Straia has always believed that the Chamber was more of her responsibility than anyone else’s because of her title as princess, because of the blood that ran in her veins. In this, her son and her are exactly the same. She has never felt entitled (acted like it, yes, but never actually felt it) to anything here, but rather felt she had to earn it even more given her birthright. She worked twice as hard as everyone, and eventually, found her way to the crown. But of course, in the end, you often have to take the things you want.
Granted, no one exactly protested now did they? She wasn’t too bad at getting the timing right.
They are together a lot, but more often because kingdom business brings them to the same places. It’s not uncommon for the boy to be one step ahead of her. Which she likes, mind you. Straia is not much for coddling, for worrying, for protecting. She wants to see the boy out and about, wants to see what he can and will do. She enjoys giving him a few minutes before her arrival to greet their guests, to learn on his own.
Today though, he finds her among the pines as she often is, weaving through them like a cat might. She misses so many of the braches that used to reach down and run their long spindly fingers across her back, that would tangle in her hair. So many of those branches burned to the ash beneath her feet, eventual fodder for the regrowth of the kingdom. The trees now are more trunks than anything else, though everything was beginning to turn green again. Slowly. They would bear the scars for a long time, but one can live with scars.
”Erebor,” she greets, her voice softer than perhaps normal, though not necessarily soft. Still, he is her son. She may not coddle, but she does love him. He asks about the pine forests, and she smiles slightly, thinking of the way they once were. Her lost love. Her first and probably only real lover in this world. She loved her son and Oksana and Lu, yes. But she loved the pine forests more. That was the truth of who she was, who she would always be.
“They are beautiful. Misty and shadowed, but tall and magnificent and strong. This kingdom was beautiful. Not in the way of the Gates or the Falls, but in a darker, more secretive way.” That was perhaps what she loved about it so much. It was hard to find the right words. She wishes that she could show him, wishes that his home looked at it had for so many centuries before the volcano. But these are only wishes, for there is nothing she can do to show him besides wait for time to reveal the forest as it should be. “A natural disaster,” though the way she says natural implies that it was anything but. “The nearby volcano erupted, and the lava destroyed most everything.”
straia queen of the chamber
04-08-2015, 05:47 PM
(This post was last modified: 04-08-2015, 05:47 PM by Erebor.)
We are at war. There will be scars.
Is he the first child to be born into the new Chamber? Is he the first Prince of Ash, the first one to wander amongst the skeletons of trees? Have all generations before him felt the embrace of the pine needles the way his mother did? He takes in her words with a frown (so serious!), looking every inch the grown-up that he is still so far from becoming. He likes to think of things like this, likes to dig deep into the past, to search for the truth that other foals would consider boring, to learn the stories of the past that his elders, his mother, and his father have to share.
She speaks of the Gates and the Falls, and he knows of them, too. He's heard of them; the stallion Texas, a visitor to their borders, had come from the Falls. He has seen so little of Beqanna, he thinks, and frowns. It's not that he wishes to leave the Chamber; it's more that he understands the necessity of traveling, of going elsewhere so that he can return here better able to serve.
He breaks the silence just after she speaks of the Chamber's secretive beauty, his voice quiet, hushed. "This kingdom is still beautiful, Mother." he says with a ghost of a smile on his lips, reminding her of something he knows she already knows, not correcting her. "It didn't destroy grandfather's heart." He says with a small, almost grim smile, and his voice has strength like iron in it.
He listens with rapt attention as she comments on the use of the unnatural. He's seen several mythical horses by now, enough to accept that some of them may have wings, horns, etc. But he's never encountered one with magic. "An unnatural disaster." He says, comprehending the meaning behind her words. "How long ago?" he could tell that it was neither yesterday, nor a hundred years ago, and he's curious (about this, about everything.
His eyes scan the skeleton-woods before coming to rest on Straia once more. "What did this? And was it just to us?" he asks, without a trace of fear in his voice. He is not worried that it may happen again; whatever it was, if it does, they will simply live or die, and then rebuild later. If some vengeful, spiteful god is determined to wipe them from Beqanna, it is unlikely that any of them could change their fate, and so he does not worry.
And he is silent, waiting to hear what she has to say. He does not waste time with questions like "why" or "how" or even "who"; would Straia even know who specifically was to blame? Would she know that it was in fact her newly minted ally, the Magician-Lord of the Valley? Certainly Erebor did not. To him, the world is Warship, Straia, and their small band here in the Chamber. The rest is largely unknown, like a landscape shrouded in clouds. Piece by piece he'll pick apart a comprehensive vision of the world, but it's slow going when you're so young and life is so vast. That's true even for him, the child who is old before his time, impossibly precocious. Erebor Native Prince of the Chamber warship x straia
i want the world in my hands
He is the first Prince of Ash, just as she is the first Queen of Ash and Ruin. Her father’s parting gift to her, of course. Even if he did it unintentionally, still what else could she have expected? He’d given her very little and so very much all at once. Sometimes she imagines that he never planned to turn her into what he did. Mostly, Rodrik ignored her, giving her enough care to stay alive and be useful and little more. Not as her mother had, before her mother was murdered. Not as Straia and Warship gave to Erebor (they may not coddle, but they were certainly present).
But the very lack of love from her father was the thing that turned her into him. Though she likes to think that she’s also learned enough from him to keep from making the same mistakes. Rodrik put his trust in no one, and though Straia knew better than to fully trust anyone, the Chamber would not be left out of decisions. Well, not most of them, anyway. She wouldn’t plot behind their back, wouldn’t make selfish decisions that affected the whole Chamber.
There are so many secrets that her father has, but she’s suspicious of many of them. Perhaps she will never have proof, but still, she’s enough like her father to know what he’s capable of.
Erebor reminds him that despite the ash (or perhaps, in some ways, because of it) the kingdom is still beautiful. She smiles slightly, a quirk of the corner of her lips. “I knew him when I was a child. My panther man,” she says, her voice somewhat nostalgic. “He let me touch him in that form. It was different. Power in a way you and I will never know.” She thinks of the muscles beneath his black fur, the claws that jutted from padded paws.
He asks when, and she pauses for a moment trying to recall exactly. “Two years before your birth.” Rodrik ruled for the first year of that, though they saw him once in an entire year. So Straia took her chance and took the throne, and had Erebor not long after. Every monarch needs an heir. “All of the kingdoms. The disasters were different everywhere. A drought in the Falls, fires in the Gates, a snow storm in the Jungle. I don’t know them all, truthfully.”
In the end, it didn’t really matter. They all healed faster than the Chamber could, with the aid of land or magicians or both. But the Chamber? The Chamber simply powered through, made stronger by their perseverance. She does have her suspicions that Eight and Evrae were behind it. She’s heard rumors from those in the kingdoms when the disasters occurred. But in some ways, she doesn’t blame him. If she had his power, wouldn’t she have done the same? Probably, truthfully. She didn’t trust her ally, but she’d rather have him as a tenuous friend than an outright enemy.
straia queen of the chamber
We are at war. There will be scars.
Straia describes his grandfather, and the boy is nostalgic. "I wish I'd known him." He imagines Atrox as a panther, imagines what it would be like to be that kind of creature. But he also knows that the Chamber would suck away the power, and that he would give it gladly, so it's nothing more than empty curiosity. He would never give up the Chamber just to know that kind of power.
She speaks of the disasters and he listens, not knowing that she thinks of his other grandfather, of Rodrik, as she speaks. He imagines each place, a waterfall with no water, the lush Gates consumed by fire, the hot and humid jungle consumed by snow. He purses his lips. No, that is no natural disaster. Things do not simply become their polar opposite, at least not without a little bit of help from magicians.
He is silent for a moment, looking at the Chamber around him, pensive and considering. The ashes seem to press down on them for a moment, the silence as heavy as it would've been in the middle of the pine forests. But there are no trees, no branches, no boughs, not yet. Surely their loss has been greatest, surely out of all of them they’ve got the most rebuilding to do. Trees like that cannot regrow overnight. They die in fire, and when they return they will be taller and stronger, but it will always take time.
"Magic." he says, and it is a statement, flat and without awe. It is all around them in the world, wielded by all the mythical kingdoms, and by other horses besides. He is not afraid of it; it makes no more sense to fear magic than it does to fear the volcanos, or fear a falling tree. They are all facts of nature (or unnature, as the case may be) and they're as real as the clouds in the sky or the puffs of ash that still rise from the untouched areas within the Chamber, still not washing away despite the passing years.
"Do you have any kind of magic, mother?" he asks, but with the curiosity of a boy asking a scientific question rather than the blind illusionism that colts usually have about their mothers. He is asking because he is curious, not because he thinks her magical. He suspects that she is not, that both of his parents are (more or less) normal. That their only magic comes in the form of hard work, determination, and a healthy dose of love for the Chamber.
And really, that's the only kind of magic he wants. Eight and Atrox can keep their mischief-magic and their panther-shifting. The black boy is only interested in the magic of muscles pressed into service, of training and preparation, and finally, of total and complete obedience to the Chamber. The peace of absolute service.
Erebor Native Prince of the Chamber warship x straia
i want the world in my hands
Atrox had been special. The Chamber had stripped him of his heart and so it did not strip him on his power. But then again, he hadn’t stayed that long. Perhaps it hadn’t been long enough to strip him of anything, though his title as Rodrik’s advisor should have been enough. Not that Atrox had really been around long enough for that title, either. Atrox and Nera. Powerful, with old names in this kingdom. But neither had served Rodrik all that well. Straia would not make that mistake. Old or not, everyone would earn the title again.
In the silence between, she cannot help but notice the silence of the kingdom as well. The Chamber has never been known for its wildlife. There aren’t flocks of birds singing in the trees or flashes of deer in the brush. But still, when the trees were alive, there was always some noise. The chittering of her squirrels, certainly, though she has no idea what has become of her friends. The stray raven and crow, a few birds here and there. Now though, there was nowhere for those creatures to live. Perhaps many had perished in the lava and the fires, and the rest had certainly fled.
Only the few loyal Chamberlings remained. It was a very good way to test loyalty, that is certain. They would weather this without the aid of magic to rebuild, without a sudden and speedy recover. Not many could do what they had all silently agreed to do. But none of them left at the sight of the dead kingdom. Rather, every one of them seemed more resolved to rebuild. She loved them for that.
His question is not stupid. Rodrik had his own powers, none of which he could use during his time in the Chamber. Straia could have her own brand of magic that Erebor would never know about since the Chamber would have stripped it. But she is plain and simple and she doesn’t mind. She needs no traits to be herself. Not that they wouldn’t make like easier, sometimes. Her electric cousin comes to mind. The ability to kill with a thought does seem tempting. “Not a lick of it,” she says. “Rodrik does though. Immortality, I know. I believe a few somewhat devilish traits, though he’s never told me exactly what. I suppose if you meet him you will find out. They should be back since he lives in the Valley now.”
straia queen of the chamber
 Use of mild power playing is allowed; no injuries without permission
We are at war. There will be scars.
He doesn't wish for traits. He doesn’t wish his mother had traits. To him, they're more trouble than they're worth. They are power, no doubt about that, but they're also a distraction. True power comes from giving your life for something you believe in. True power comes from commitment. Perhaps his thoughts in this regard stray dangerously close to being a light; perhaps his belief in the power of the heart comes across as something that is, itself, light-hearted.
But he values the power of the heart in the same way a black magician does. The power of the heart can be used to bind. It can be used to manipulate. In his mind, the heart is not some light, white construction. Instead it is dark and red, fresh and raw and bleeding and utterly useful and not anything classically beautiful at all. Certainly nothing that a light horse would ever consider. To Erebor, the heart – like everything else – is just a tool to be used for the glory of the Chamber.
"Rodrik." he says, as though testing and tasting the name on his tongue. He's come so far and learned so much, but he is still more or less in the dark about that side of his family. He has learned plenty of Atrox from his father, and that grandfather's heart beats in the floor of the Chamber, but what of his other Grandfather? Who is Rodrik, apart from the king who ruled before Straia? Surely there are secrets there that he should know. Surely there are things there that he should be aware of.
He opens his mouth to ask, but then is silenced by a sudden, strange smell and sound.
He doesn't recognize it at first, but he thinks it smells like death, like something that is rotten. The stench is followed closely by strange noises that simply shouldn't exist, noises like a skeleton moving through the trees. He looks to his mother, his expression quizzical, knowing that she must hear it too. It is coming from the vague direction of the kingdom border and seems to be pressing ever deeper into its heart. Curiously, he notes he doesn't hear the cracking of branches and the other noises of destruction that usually accompany a newcomer trying to trespass. Equally oddly, this thing (whatever it is) doesn't smell like trespassing either. It smells a little like Valley, and a lot like death.
Wordlessly, he looks to his mother, and they move to pursue the thing. Erebor Native Prince of the Chamber warship x straia
Lookit me ending threads like a bawss before we run into space-time continuum problems! If it wasn't obvious, in my mind they both heard Rodrik come in and went off to go see wtf was making that noise/smell. If you aren't cool with this, just let me know and I'll edit!
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