The ones who are gone

[Ardashir]

Ardashir

He had turned into everything that he did not want. He was an absentee father, and a shadow that stalked the edge of the kingdoms he served. The white stag had seemingly vanished from the world and left all of those important to him in the lurch. He grit his teeth and charged the large evergreen trunk again his horns cracking and splintering the bark. He ground those dark attachments against the steadfast tree as he worked through his anger with himself. Had he ghosted because of his obligations? No! He pawed the ground and thrashed his head against his wooden foe. Had it been fear then? Maybe..He faltered and swung his tail around a couple times in frustration. The magic that the fairies had blessed him with had also put a change on him. The stallion was still learning to control it and failing at times. Was that when it all started? Last fall? With the changing leaves and the foreign calls from the woods?


The call to battle from some unknown challenger. The change had taken him in the late afternoon. The pain from the shifting of bones and setting of them into new forms had drove him deep into the forests of the isle. The stag took on the shape of just that. A large white elk stag and he had stared at his new shape in a deep pool for the first hour before the panic set in. How to change back? Was there a way? Ardashir had set his mind a fire back then on how to get back to his true form. And, all the running and fighting the trees and rocks dragging his flesh across the jagged stones had yielded nothing. He had taken to the sea then and swam away in the changing seasons. The stag wandered to the large expanses of the forest and slipped away into the shadows still hearing that foreign challenge in his ears. And, that is how he found himself battling in the rut of that fall. He put his new form to use challenging those bulls. But, he could not keep a harem of those elk females. His mind knew this was all a farce and he was not a true stag and so he slipped away at the end of the season.


The stallion had started to quiet his mind in the evenings and thought back on his original form. A stallion and not a stag. The change came again and he groaned with pain as he started to understand this new power that was blessed to him. Ardashir still stayed with in the hidden halls of the trees though as he worked to get a hold of this power though. And, it had taken him away from family and kingdoms. Surely though, others out there is this large world had similar powers? And, he had no reason to be afraid of how his family and allies might view him. He had traveled back then back through Nerine and watched from those shadows what was going on. The plague was not getting better and, then the ocean once more had greeted him and he swam to icicle isle. His new home, and it now seemed that even this once safe land was open to infection. He had walked the edges of the land and for a time stayed to the trees and hidden spots listening and watching. The shifting over taking him from time to time and he grew frustrated with it and had to learn once more to calm his mind and accept the power before he was able to shift back.


Ardashir panted and brought himself back to the present. His head resting hard against the tree trunk. His nostrils flared and red with his exsertion. He owed so many an apology. His brother the ice king, his queen, and his lover Nalia. The daughter they shared as well needed her father. He closed his eyes tightly. He had failed them all.    

Out under the sky...

@[Nalia]
@[Leilan]