I can't shake this little feeling -- Ruan

[Eight]

no matter what they say, I am still the king

Oh to be at the mercy of the elements once more! In truth, Eight had never cared to manipulate the world around him in order to give himself comfort. In fact, he welcomed the biting cold – the beating sun – the shattering rain. True enough, he wielded the elements to his pleasure when necessary – for battle or protection or comfort of others. But the most strange sensation is knowing he could no longer do this. That the withering winter winds that ravaged the two men were just that – winter winds, no longer wieldable by the (once) magician (once) king.
You turn, and there is a flicker of inquisitiveness that blazes across your eyes – it is unmistakable in seeing your eyes flicker to Eight’s side. You act as if no time had passed – that Beqanna did not eat her young and recreate a new world. Eight exhales tightly, a form of a laugh if you will. “ I am no king, Ruan. I never truly was.” In fact, while Eight councils at Tephra, he would still no longer be your king (although it wasn’t quite a monarchy in the lands they had chosen). Strange, how freely you accept what Eight was, how you refer to respect for him although you were never truly close with him. Strange, just like Kilter.
Eight’s eyes flicker behind you – for small footprints in the snow (wolven or equine) – but he knows it’s fruitless as he sees the silken smooth snow behind you. There is no Kilter here.
“Have you seen-” and as Eight says this, he finds it almost laughable. He was a magician once, a king a half a dozen times over – he was feared and respected and perhaps even hated. And yet here he was, without any inkling of where his child may be (of even who his child may be. “Have you seen Kilter? His mother has not seen him and is worried.” He thinks of the raptor queen, muted without her telepathy, lost without her band of grullo children. “I have seen you watching him in the woods. You are the only one he has spoken with save for his family.”

∞

and now the storm is coming, the storm is coming in