03-06-2020, 07:58 AM
A dark-tipped ear flicks to the sound.
It isn’t a call he knows. It is a horse he knows and yet the irritation that flickers across his ebony face is genuine. Kildare has had a lifetime of commands and coming to Beqanna had meant leaving that life behind him. The lines of his dark mouth pull down and he scowls before dropping his head again, fully intending to lull himself back into sleep.
It is the shifting form of the adolescent girl next to me that keeps him awake.
<i>”Da?”</i> Lora asks, <i>”Did you hear that?”</i>
The filly reaches out and tugs at the loose strands of his mane, trying to get his attention.
Kildare sighs and opens his eyes, lifting his head to smile fondly at his only child. <b>”I did, Love.”</b> He nudges her and encourages her to drift back asleep, to take a hold of that chance while the dawn hasn’t broken yet. <b>”Stay here,”</b> he murmurs. She will be safe enough in her mothers’ kingdom (at least as safe as one can be in a kingdom with dragons and aliens but he thinks that Mary affords her some protection). <b>”I’ll be back soon,”</b> the dark stallion says with a smile.
He can’t know what kind of call he is answering; Kildare has never had anything to do with the Mountain. (But would he really have turned around if he knew the magics and myths revolving around that place?)
It is light by the time he reaches the base of the Mountain. The black stallion hadn’t been gifted like his other siblings with the gift of wings and so he walks, a feat that takes a few hours from the south of Loess. When he reaches the base of the Mountain, there are others answering a call of ambitions and desires. Of things that might be in reach and things that might not be attainable without the use of magic.
What does he dream of?
Kildare pauses at that - his dreams have always been erratic and shifting scenes. There has been little sense to them. But he is as corruptible as the rest of them, there is something he wants. Something he wants back, a hole in his DNA that Beqanna demanded of him for his entrance into the land.
His green eyes meet the amber ones of Straia, <b>”To have my magic returned to me. I could control the winds once.”</b> There is more that he can add - that he was the one of the most skilled airbenders of his bloodline, that his power was traced to Legado himself.
And Beqanna had stripped him of it.
But what does Kildare, who has no power or position or prestige, have to offer?
He can’t even keep his promises.
<b>”I would give you my loyalty.”</b> To her, to her Gods, to whatever she desired, he would give it. Let it be her - this Magician - who chooses where that goes.
For now, there is the only waiting.
Kildare is loyal to Loess!
It isn’t a call he knows. It is a horse he knows and yet the irritation that flickers across his ebony face is genuine. Kildare has had a lifetime of commands and coming to Beqanna had meant leaving that life behind him. The lines of his dark mouth pull down and he scowls before dropping his head again, fully intending to lull himself back into sleep.
It is the shifting form of the adolescent girl next to me that keeps him awake.
<i>”Da?”</i> Lora asks, <i>”Did you hear that?”</i>
The filly reaches out and tugs at the loose strands of his mane, trying to get his attention.
Kildare sighs and opens his eyes, lifting his head to smile fondly at his only child. <b>”I did, Love.”</b> He nudges her and encourages her to drift back asleep, to take a hold of that chance while the dawn hasn’t broken yet. <b>”Stay here,”</b> he murmurs. She will be safe enough in her mothers’ kingdom (at least as safe as one can be in a kingdom with dragons and aliens but he thinks that Mary affords her some protection). <b>”I’ll be back soon,”</b> the dark stallion says with a smile.
He can’t know what kind of call he is answering; Kildare has never had anything to do with the Mountain. (But would he really have turned around if he knew the magics and myths revolving around that place?)
It is light by the time he reaches the base of the Mountain. The black stallion hadn’t been gifted like his other siblings with the gift of wings and so he walks, a feat that takes a few hours from the south of Loess. When he reaches the base of the Mountain, there are others answering a call of ambitions and desires. Of things that might be in reach and things that might not be attainable without the use of magic.
What does he dream of?
Kildare pauses at that - his dreams have always been erratic and shifting scenes. There has been little sense to them. But he is as corruptible as the rest of them, there is something he wants. Something he wants back, a hole in his DNA that Beqanna demanded of him for his entrance into the land.
His green eyes meet the amber ones of Straia, <b>”To have my magic returned to me. I could control the winds once.”</b> There is more that he can add - that he was the one of the most skilled airbenders of his bloodline, that his power was traced to Legado himself.
And Beqanna had stripped him of it.
But what does Kildare, who has no power or position or prestige, have to offer?
He can’t even keep his promises.
<b>”I would give you my loyalty.”</b> To her, to her Gods, to whatever she desired, he would give it. Let it be her - this Magician - who chooses where that goes.
For now, there is the only waiting.
Kildare is loyal to Loess!