[private] the lost and the damned, aela

[kensley]

kensley

i swore the days were over of courting empty dreams

Kensley is not made of greatness.
And he knows beyond the shadow of a doubt that Jamie’s power has nothing at all to do with him and everything to do with his mother.

The dark magician he has loved so fiercely for what feels like his entire life.

He knows that he has been given these things he does not deserve: the ability to shatter and the gift (if it could even be considered a gift) of delving into the thoughts of others. And now this, the fog that curls itself around him and becomes him, the ability to manipulate the weather.

There is no reason for any of it.

Fate’s idea of a joke, perhaps. Because he has never been anything but plain with a wanderer’s heart, (not the only thing he inherited from his father but the thing he resents the most).

But she is a stronger thing than he is. She is a thing made for greatness and he suspects that any further argument would do little to convince her.

(This is surely a gift he does not deserve, her opinion of him.)

Fog curls around his feet, glowing faintly. (He cannot manipulate this anymore, not the way he could ever so briefly in a way that made him wonder if his son was responsible for this, too.) And he considers her question about the White Magician. He remembers the way his son’s rage had rattled the canyon walls. He remembers how much he’d destroyed when Beyza had taken their girls and gone.

He shakes his head and the answer comes out even more mournful than he intends, “no.”

He glances toward the horizon. “I haven’t seen her in years either.” Neither the magician nor the girls she bore. And it occurs to him that he misses them fiercely. (They are not his only grandchildren, he knows that, but they are the first he ever got close to.)

i worshipped at the altar of losing everything

@Aela

[Aela]

Her mind is swirling with ideas much like the fog that coils and curls around Kensley's hooves. It even glows, much the thoughts that are lighting within her. (And there are other thoughts as well. How long had it been since she had actually seen Beyza? What had happened between their last meeting and the years since? Three daughters, she learns, and the White Magician has earned the ire of another.)

Where would Beyza have gone, if she had fled Pangea?

There are empty spaces in Kensley's memories, images of the empty caverns and hollows. The Empath doesn't miss the mournful tone of his voice, and the ache that settles around his once-frozen heart echoes within Aela as well. "Your son," she decides to ask, "Jamie is still there, yes?"

If he was, then perhaps her pale friend went West, the opposing direction of the East. (It never occurs to her that Beyza and her daughters might have gone North. Why would they?) It might not be such a hard thing to track them down, she thinks at first. If Aela tracked towards Tephra and the coast along Sylva, she might be able to catch a glimpse of her and her children through the memories of others. But then she scowls, remembering that Tephra had come under the watch of her brother Gale. Tephra was becoming known as a kingdom of shadows and she doubted that her old friend's Magic would have allowed her to stay there.

Still feeling Kensley's sense of loss, Aela lightens it with a feeling of warmth that kindles between them both.


@kensley

They doused your soul in water,
but the flames raged higher.
And they called you devil's daughter,
such a pretty liar.

[kensley]

kensley

i swore the days were over of courting empty dreams

Kensley has resented his father his whole life.
And now, as if to punish him for it, he has had to confront the complicated relationship between father and son from the other side.

(Had Jarris ever been proud of Kensley? Kensley cannot help but doubt it because his father had never seemed capable of looking beyond the edge of himself to see anyone else. And Kensley had never done anything worth being proud of anyway.)

But he understands now that you can both fear and revere someone. You can love something fiercely despite its darkness, its flaws, the trouble that it causes. Because Jamie has caused nothing but trouble. Even in his youth, Kensley thinks, and it is a terrible thing for a father to think, but those terrible things have not dampened his love for his son.

And what does that make him?
What does it mean that he has done nothing to try and stop Jamie?

A coward.
But this is nothing new.
He has always been a coward.

He draws in a long breath and nods. “Yes,” he says and manages to keep the edge of bitterness from his tone. He swallows thickly and glances over his shoulder, as if he might find his son watching them. As if he might see all the way to Pangea, where the Darkness lurks.

“Desire made him Champion of Pangea shortly after he won the Alliance.” (This, too, is a point of contention. Because Kensley had fallen to the opponent that his son had bested to win. Gale. Aela’s brother.

She shifts the mourning in his chest, displacing it with something warmer, but he will never be able to speak fondly of his son. At least not openly. 

“He is a lot of terrible things,” he admits, “but he is fiercely loyal.”

 

i worshipped at the altar of losing everything

@Aela