[private] If my heart was a compass you’d be North | Breckin

[Leilan]

We got older and I should have known
that I’d feel colder when I walk alone

He’s got a case of broodiness, and so he’s staring into the heart-shaped lake.

This quest to heal the plague had started here… the sickness is still here, and unfortunately has not lessened yet either. And where the icicles hit him (there are none, today), he still bears the marks. Not like scars, though - the ice is rather pretty. The kid has little snowflakes too now, and he suspects that is some weird kind of magic transfer. But what can one do about it; that’s the way the world works these days.

And still he wonders why the lake never freezes over. It is still such a strange phenomenon. But if he’s really honest with himself, so is he.

The point of it all? Not so sure. He’d thought claiming the land for Nerine would mean something. To them, out there in Nerine, but also to himself. Instead, things got really messy, festered like an old wound, and now that he finally has it all sorted out (sort of) he honestly thinks he should just cut clean.

But the point is, the Isle will need to have settled a tad more for him to safely do that. Settled with Nerine, and it’s place in the world.

And so he lingers, and wonders once again why he’s even alive.

Perhaps Shah has the right of it, retreating like that, and only really talking to their mother and to his wife.

Too bad Scorch doesn’t ever really want to talk to him.

The scaled stallion rests his head on the lonely tree for a while. But processing on his own leads him in circles, he has found - he needs people to ground him, stopping him from wandering, people that guide him back home. People who actually care for whatever kind of hair-fractured soul he has left - after all, most the good he’s done is to fix the bad he left behind. So much so that his own mother seems to be scared of him?

Seems that that leaves him his wife, and so when he opens his eyes, he has decided it has been too long since they had any normal talk, unrelated to politics and the bad things of the world.

She’s the only escape he has, or so it feels sometimes. The only thing he’ll always turn back to. Like a moth to a flame, she’s the light and warmth... stop. Better just go find her.

Leilan

no. 7 | ice forged in fire

@[Breckin] whoops someone is a bit of a mess today

[Breckin]

Not long after she’d called her last gathering of Nerine’s residents as their queen, she’d braved the journey across the waterway and back into the the frigid clutches of the Isle.  A bold and dumb move perhaps, to travel so heavily pregnant the way that she had, but willpower and stubborness can make for a mighty convincing whip-bearing driver.  The instinct of motherhood had come surprisingly easily to her, and with not much else in the ways of protecting her children from the Plague itself, the least she could do was give them their first days of life within a sanctuary.

Little Aodhan had come relatively quickly compared to the twins; a beautiful golden spotted boy so small and perfect.  As with the last, she’d been instantly captivated by him, stoking once more the kindling that only a burning devotion to a precious child could bring.  But a quiet realization lightened her mood, and sprouted a simple deviation from the last bout of child-rearing.  This time without the burden of leadership resting precariously upon her shoulders, there was a newfound freedom of release and a shift in perspective; clarifying the lines between kingdom and loved ones, and fostering a new appreciation for the small family she’d created with Leilan.

As in any other days marked in their shared past, she is easy for him to find.  In the midst of a rousing game of hide and seek behind the Isle’s scrubby trees and snow blanketed boulders, Breckin’s laughter interlaces with the the childish giggle of her first-born son’s.  A sound that fades with the impending footsteps as the scaled stallion quickly killed the distance between them.

“Leilan,” she says between short breaths of laughter, “Would you like to join us?”  But the empath within her and the roll of her gut recognizes the shift in his mood as her dark eyes cut towards the vibrance of his own, “Is everything okay?”


@[Leilan] that's okay she'll try to fix it :]

[Leilan]

We got older and I should have known
that I’d feel colder when I walk alone

She's not alone, he hears when he draws near. Perhaps he'd half hoped, or expected, her to get one of the twins to babysit their little brother, though to be honest the girls were still so young, too - Eurwen perhaps had a lot to learn still, and although babysitting was one way to get her to learn, she also had to spend a lot of time in Nerine to learn more about the land and it's inhabitants. As well as skills he didn't possess and probably never would; diplomacy wasn't his strongest suit. He can only hope that her grandmother is proving helpful with that, though the way she looked last after the kingdom meeting, he's more inclined to put his faith in, say, Porcia.

Still, the boy is a welcome distraction. The kid's playing, chasing insects or whatever else (if he'd cared enough right there and then to switch visions he might have spotted the white rabbit too, but he's preoccupied). Of course, his own first instinct is to give Breckin a hug or any brush of nose against her soft skin - anything really -, but the little one craves his attention too. Probably because he sees his mother on a daily basis. Leilan smirks apologetically at his wife as Aodhán comes between them easily. "Papa, look!" Bouncing up and down, the spotted boy wants to show his parents what he's found today; the food the rabbit had wanted to eat, red berries on the snow-and-grey background of the Isle. Distracted, the roan nuzzles the boys head. Even so, Aodhán pouts, because he doesn't get the full attention of the both of them, but as his father has more attention for his mother, it appears to the spotted boy that he's got to have to try again later. A dramatic sigh follows, then he forgets much about all of it and goes a little further away to try and melt his own snowflakes again (something that never seems to work); instead creating quite the puddle beneath him. This seems to interest the rabbit once more, and so the cycle continues.

Finally with the chance to meet Breckin, the scaled roan brushes his nose against hers in greeting. "Everything's normal," he starts with, meaning the Isle is fine and it's inhabitants (those he'd found and checked on from a distance today) seem healthy and unbothered for as far as he can see right now. The summer's already starting to turn, he's noticed; the snow from the northern half doesn't as often melt away. Looking past her towards the island, as if scanning it again, it takes him a moment to return to meet her gaze. "I've been wondering if I'm cut out for normalcy, though." Maybe this isn't what he wants in life, either. He knows he wants to be with her, but - that might be all he really knows about himself or what he wants.

And perhaps if he could be content with that, this life he's leading now would be just fine - but that's the point. That's probably always why he's been wandering so much, never really settling. The Jungle hadn't been the home it was supposed to be, Ischia hadn't been, Nerine even... well, it's just that Breckin was there really. And alright, maybe his mother and his siblings. Now the Isle is his home, more so than any other place had been, but as long as nobody really stays here with him, or even visits (of course, she's the exception), then what good is it? Shouldn't he rather start wandering again, wouldn't it be better then perhaps, if he could visit those that had spread out over the world instead of waiting pointlessly for them to never visit here.

But did they even want him to - perhaps that's what bothers him the most.

Leilan

no. 7 | ice forged in fire

@[Breckin] blerp