Private Tales Mourning

[Draedamyr]

What was an hour to an elf? The task had taken weeks, so what was an hour to commit this to memory. Out beyond the coast the clouds seemed to have formed three distinct layers with clear sky between them. The one closest to the horizon was a deep slate grey, the upper layer a salmon pink. Draedamyr stood stock still for an entire hour, his eyes tracing every little aspect and letting the sight bond to what it made him feel. It was stored away with all the things, grand and insignificant alike, that had captured his attention over the centuries.

Slowly, he turned his head towards the town further along the coastal road. The end of this road. Part of him didn't want to reach it. Draedamyr could never respect those who followed a course of action too rashly. There were also times when you simply couldn't turn away from the path.




The light was fading by the time he found its end. There had been a guard where the road reached the small town. Draedamyr had been directed to the local guardhouse to explain his purpose. Eventually they had given him some direction. A young member of the guard followed twenty steps behind him, but would stay out of the way as long as they didn't put anyone else in danger.

“Ythris,” he called out.

The younger elf turned sharply. He pursed his lips as dismay settled across his face. It was said that they all looked like children to humans. Draedamyr wondered if they would be able to tell the vast difference in age between himself and Ythris.

Ythris waved away the man he had been talking to and walked down the road towards them. It was hardened, cracked earth. There had not been much rain recently. Behind the young elf the red light of the departed sun was slowly fading into the oceans. The end of the road indeed.

“You don't have to do this,” Ythris spoke in their own tongue.

“You know I do.” Draedamyr held his gaze. He owed him that much.

“Walk away. Forget you ever knew me.” There was no fear in Ythris’ eyes. Even now, making one last desperate plea. Draedamyr saw too much in those eyes and knew it had to be done quickly.

“I could never forget you. Not the love I have for you. Not even the way you disappointed me. Though I wish I could.”

Ythris looked as if he might have had more to say. Draedamyr was glad that he didn't. The soft rasp of a saber leaving its sheath had never sounded more like a soft sigh of resignation. They both knew what came now. They could have done this dance a hundred time and it would have gone the same way. Of all the steps Ythris knew, he had been taught at least half by Draedamyr.




“Do you want to take the body? Give him some kind of elven send off?”

The guard was a boy, by both elven and human standards, Draedamyr thought as he wiped his blade clean. He barely raised an eyebrow.

“You heard what he did. Dispose of him however you wish.” Draedamyr said curtly. He sheathed his long blade and the short one that had struck the final blow. He knelt down briefly, clasped a gloved hand around the charm around Ythris’ neck and yanked. It came free with a soft ‘plink’. That one gesture finally showed a fraction of the anger he felt.

“I'll need a signed letter from your guard captain.”

“He can't really…write.”

“I'll need his mark just the same.” He still wanted the coin from the bounty. It had been earned.

“Then you'll be gone?” the guard asked. They always wanted him gone.

“Immediately, yes.” He wanted to be far from this town. He had a meeting to keep at Gurchen Town. Two days along the trade road that followed the coast south west from Alliria. He kept few friends and he felt like talking to an old one right now.

Velaeri

 

[Velaeri]

Gurchen Town
Two Days Later
The Gillyseed Pub

Leather boots stepped across loose dirt and stone, maintaining a path towards the Pub that took the least resistance. Gurchen Town wasn't a largely populated place, not in comparison to the much larger cities across the countryside, but there were enough people here to make her presence an issue. Those steps moved carefully along, wending between passerby before coming to stand before the entrance to the pub.

Not a rowdy place, but filled with the gentle hum and murmur of townsfolk and traveler alike. The woman stood in silence, seemingly curious to a bounty board set beside the door. The typical calls for aid: vagabonds and thieves in the night stealing away what few precious things the people here claimed. Livestock gone missing. The town drunk beat his wife and took off into the forest to escape persecution.

Shades on the road.

An enormous beast of a bear seen traveling across the far fields.

"The likes of which I've not seen since ever!" said a man as he yanked open the door and came very nearly close to colliding with the hooded woman standing there, "Gods be good!" he yelped in surprised, "Watch yourself woman, yer in the way!"

Though her face was cast to shadow beneath the green of her hood, blue eyes peered at the man most keenly but not a word was said. She stepped to the side and gestured, nigh lazily, with a hand for him to pass. He blustered a moment, looked to his comrade, and both took their leave of the Pub. The woman slipped in before the door could close and silently passed through those already seated to find herself an empty table with two open chairs off to the side.

"What'll you have Miss?" a waitress approached, "We've got a nice beef stew in the pot today, can I catch your appetite with it?"

The woman gently waved a dismissive hand in a manner that said not just yet.

"Waitin' for someone then?"

The cowl nodded.

"I'll come back to ya then when they arrive."

There was the faintest smile of thanks on her lips, but it drew a strange line there as if she didn't quite know how to use the expression. Left alone, she waited in quiet, tempered patience.

 

[Draedamyr]

Even the door seemed to move more silently as he stepped inside. His sword belt was hung beside it with several others. His eyes would return to Reverie and Midnight frequently through the evening. The blades, born in magical forges that had long fallen silent, were a part of him.

He slipped between two men without excusing himself, disturbing neither despite how little space they left between their backs. She was already here. He could feel the subtle eddies in the ether. Despite not being able to use it to any significant degree he could recognise many forms of magic.

"It is good to see you again," he said as he took his seat. His face seemed to betray nothing, but she could probably pick up the very subtle signs. Draedamyr had been through something deeply upsetting.
Velaeri

 

[Velaeri]

A nuanced pitch of the head within the cowl followed the elf as he took his seat, a hidden gaze taking him in. There was only one in this realm she knew as well as this man, only one she knew longer. So when he sat across from her at the table and failed to provide the customary greeting, Velaeri knew something was very wrong.

My friend... pupils dilated and telescoped in the eyes of the woman unnaturally, the ethereal voice he knew well slipping into his mind as it always did, what has happened?

 

[Draedamyr]

The corner of his lip barely twitched. It was a rare crack in the neutral visage he maintained so well.

The storm that sweeps aside the calm and perpetuates darkness.

Draedamyr had been in a foul mood since he had reached the inevitable conclusion of his path. He knew that he wasn't eating properly and wished he could go back to that ocean view and skip that coastal village altogether.

"Get you any drinks? We've got a beef stew on if it takes yer fancy sir?"

Draedamyr turned slowly towards the waitress. "A bowl would be welcome, please," he said softly. "Do you have any wine?"

Her expression said no. Someone at the bar itself scoffed.

"Your nicest ale please. Two of," he said, appending the request so there was something sat on the table in front of her. He reached into his bag and set his spoon and knife on the table in front of him. Few establishments provided their own, so diners were expected to bring theirs.

You remember I took on that apprentice from Eastern Falwood? He had been quite excited the first time he had brought it up.

 

[Velaeri]

The hooded woman in green remained passive at the exchange between the waitress and the elf. Interruptions and distractions often lead to anger and impatience, but both of them had aged beyond the need for such reactions. When you had all the time...

All the time in the world.

What was an extra moment, extra breath, extra word.

One might sooner say that a tree had too many leaves or that a lake had too many ripples.

Two of.

He knew she could not partake. It wasn't a gesture made for her sake, but for the sake of anonymity. The less to draw attention to two strangers in a pub, the more the rest of the world could move on in its quick and forgettable life. Velaeri watched him unblinking, waiting for the conversation to continue, the shift between patience and thought entirely unnoticeable.

I remember, she returned, her own mind going back to the day she first met the young elf. The Lady had very sharp senses and very good memory, she could recall exactly how he looked, what he wore, the stumble he took in his steps to follow his mentor. Her blue gaze went hazy for a moment as the words, so softly spoken as they usually were by the man, returned to her recollection.

Ythris.

Yes, that was his name.

Your youngest Apprentice yet. Intrepid boy ... you were unimpressed, but he was smart and willing.

Unfortunately her memory of this Ythris was sparse. Visits with her friend had not been frequent in those days.

Is he unwell?

 

[Draedamyr]

"No."

Even if his expression said nothing slipping back into words spoke volumes. Like most elder elves with a trace of magical ability he had mastered telepathic communication with a receptive soul centuries ago.

In the end he was quite brilliant. Of course I played my part in that, but... It was like a portrait. One where you started with something simple and just... Just as it started to take form it started to finish painting itself. Becoming something beautiful but not quite what you expected.

Not what I expected, he though to himself as he fell silent. His chest rose a little higher than the breath before had taken it. It fell slowly.

He did something awful. So bad that I had to take the Bounty myself. He would have killed half those dogs that chased him. The other half would have...they would have made him suffer. I caught up to him two days ago. It is done.

The silence that followed carried more weight that his words. His eyes flicked towards his hanging sword belt and not to ensure they hadn't been stolen.

Humans couldn't feel an emotional pain so acute it could stop the heart. Their emotions were fleeting things, just like their souls. This was just the start of his mourning and it might last for a month, a few years or even a century.

If his people still lived together then he could have travelled there and joined them in a mourning soung or an elegy to lessen the ache behind his ribs. They didn't and he couldn't. Just beginning to express what he had been through was already making it more tolerable, it only marginally.

 

[Velaeri]

Silence from Velaeri.

When he finished explaining, the waitress arrived and put the bowl of stew before him, "Anything else for ya luv?"

With a quiet no from the man she smiled and headed off to tend to other people.

It was a tale as old as time, perhaps as old as love. Maybe older. The tale of the Apprentice gone rogue - the embodiment of one's life, one's knowledge and wisdom, seen before them in the form of a youthful and more able version of themselves. To continue the legacy of yore and carry on the knowledge. It was a life-long journey that brought mere associates as close as kin, in most cases. To watch your pupil turn from the path set before them, to spite the intentions of time-honored knowledge, to have done it all for naught.

She could not imagine the heartache he felt namely because Velaeri had no children, kept no kin, and reared no Apprentices.

But she did know of loss.

You ... did not honor his death.

A guess, but a well-educated one based on the pain he presently exuded. There were rights, there were rituals, there were honors to be made within the deaths of elves for they were often few and far between. Death was a journey made by only so few of them.

What did he do?

 

[Draedamyr]

His top lip curled up a fraction. Draedamyr smoothed out his expression and lowered his gaze back to the table. Long, spidery fingers wrapped around the clay mug and he took a sip of his drink before wiping the suds from his lip.

If he had been looking for inspiration to provide the story he didn't find it in the beer. Weak flavourless stuff. It held none of the character of a wine and was likely only brewed to make the day go faster for peasants.

I never taught him to lose. I taught him to win. Some of the fault lies with me. He was humiliated in a duel to the first cut. Toyed with and embarrassed he...he planned a revenge against the Duke. The Duke and his family. There were children involved.

From the sudden silence and the speed at which he then attacked the stew in front him it would be clear that he wasn't going to go any deeper into the story.

I loved him very much, and my pride became his pride.

 

[Velaeri]

Further silence. An understanding that not all words needed responses. Not all actions needed reactions. Mistakes were something they were all guilty of, no matter the age nor divinity. She'd made plenty of her own over her long life. Velaeri watched him sup, the illusion of her presence closing her eyes while her true body tended to a distraction somewhere off in the hills overlooking the village. When they opened again they seemed far clearer, the features of her shadowed face more defined. A portrait given depth where none had been before.

Either she had moved closer or she had gained better focus. Perhaps both.

Almariin and I have uncovered the lost Auraphix egg, her mental voice declared with some amount of pride. It has hatched under the light of a full moon ...

... and it has imprinted upon a half-mortal.

She seemed to emit a deep sigh, though the woman at the table remained still. Something about the color of her cheeks.

 

[Draedamyr]

His fingers drummed lightly on the table once. Then he tapped them all down on the table together. Moving on. His mind wasn't a single tune being played out. For hundreds of years his mind had grown not to just balance all the voices that built the harmony of one thought. Many songs played out at once, some receded only to return later. Sometimes the strands of a single thought stretched out over years, coming and going when it pleased.

The meloncholy sounds of his current thought ebbed away, but couldn't leave him. They would alter the character of every thought that would cross his mind for a long time.

Even if the revelation was a deliberate attempt to distract him, he could still appreciate it. And if not, she would have been containing this news whilst he shared his grief. There was nothing more he had to express on the matter coherently. A new tune: light, curious. He met her gaze once more.

"How long had you been searching?"

 

[Velaeri]

Seventy-two years.

A much longer time than she was happy to admit. But the last Auraphix had imprinted upon a being that specialized in not being found. Rotten luck, that. Nearly 300 years of constantly losing track of one of the realm's greater mythical beasts. Much as Velaeri was perturbed by the new hatchling imprinting upon a mortal, she felt her job of keeping tabs on it this go-round would be immeasurably easier.

If not shorter in lifespan, at the very least.

It was supposed to have imprinted upon Almariin ... to be used to find the hidden portals of the Vale. Instead the fates saw it more kind to bestow the gift upon a young half-elf girl named Amelia.

Not here, but somewhere, the gryphon was kneading at its temple in weariness.

With luck it will live a good and brief existence at her side and we can try again...

 

[Draedamyr]

You arrived too late? he asked. Velaeri knew the name of the girl, so he assumed there was more to the story. He hoped there was. Whilst it had not panned out quite as the gryphon might have hoped it certainly wasn't a story of mourning. Draedamyr was still a long way from deciding whether he could allow himself to be amused at this turn of events. At least he was interested. And distracted.

I might be gone before you find it again! There was at least some amusement conveyed this time. There were, after all, only so many human lifespans left for him. The turning could come at almost any time for an elf. The time when they started to show the signs of age. There would only be a hundred years left when that began. Given his family history it was likely to be anywhere from the next few years to two hundred years away.

 

[Velaeri]

Hardly, the woman looked away, bristling at the suggestion that the problem be of her own making. Her nose visibly twitched, she stumbled upon us as we found it. Looked like a lost lamb staring a dragon in the face - pithy thing. Almariin invited her over to see and it began to hatch in her presence. I warned her not to - outsiders meddling in the affairs of the ageless has never ended well.

This had been the most puzzling development. No one really knew what triggered the hatching of the Auraphix egg.

Almariin believes it is fated to be with her.

The woman's blue eyes panned back to her companion, settling on him without a hint of expressive emotion.

Expressions are unnecessary, he might remember her commenting however many years ago it was that she first practiced this illusion. The issue was more that they were complicated to replicate coming from a creature who had spent the last several hundred years perfecting the regal glower.

Well I'll be sure to keep extra close watch of it this time. Can't have you fading into the nether before we uncover the first portal back into the Vale.

 

[Draedamyr]

Fading? I intend to go out blazing, he replied. Violent lives had violent ends, but in truth he planned to live his last years in peace. She knew that as well, but he was mentally taking a step away from himself to try to enjoy the conversation.

He would have to return the conversation to what he had been through. Perhaps later in the evening, maybe not for days or weeks. It was like opening a fine bottle of wine - something he could sorely do with. The lid was off and he could breathe again, the more complex notes of his grief would take their time to emerge. There was danger circling a single thought. Greater elves than himself had lost themselves in their own minds by dwelling on a single thought.

I don't hold much value in fate, he told her. Usually it is chance behind such things. Or the plotting of a person of flesh and blood. The humans seem intent on breaking the world to try and understand it within their short lifespan. What is the girl like?

If anything, he assumed the former was it work. Velaeri would have discerned any foul play at work. She was probably keeping a close eye on the girl.

 

[Velaeri]

Indeed.

There might've been a smirk under the cowl of her hood, lingering somewhere between the glint of knowing mirth and shallow amusement. If that elf would do any blazing on his way out, it would be with a smoking pipe and a dreamy gaze. Somewhere beyond her corporeal form, Velaeri swallowed a chuckle.

You know I tend to agree as much, her thoughts on Fate and The Fated had been shared countless times with him before. She didn't place much stock in Fate, but sometimes things were a little too coincidental to leave them merely to chance. Chance wasn't that ... precise.

Young, babbling, naive. Wholly unimpressive.

A dismissiveness that Almariin did not share and a quality he was well-familiar with in his feathered companion. It wasn't in Velaeri's nature to give credit until it was earned and the girl had earned none of it, yet.

I have serious doubts this was a plan hatched by her or any of her people. They lack the cunning and the knowledge.

 

[Draedamyr]

Whilst he agreed about the knowledge, he was not so certain about the cunning. Humans were a diverse group and the most conniving among them often seemed to rise to positions of power. They had just enough of it to be truly dangerous within their short, reckless lives.

If young then perhaps...

Perhaps what? Perhaps you could guide them and shape them. Perhaps you could do a better job than I did?

Another time, perhaps years away, there could be an interesting debate on how a person was formed. How much was inhereted and how much was shaped by the lessons of life? It would be some time before he was willing to have that conversation.

At least you were both there.

 

[Velaeri]

The skeptical nature of the stare he received in return could not be properly manifested through the vision, though he would likely feel it all the same.

I do not know what you are suggesting but I already do not like it...

Pupils. Students. Charges. She was a God-Creature charged with the preservation of a people and a place long lost to time. Hers was a missive given unto ethereal right and obligation. Velaeri did not have the time nor the patience to be taking on some hapless half-mortal in a futile expedition of knowledge and self discovery. Those were best left to other land-dwellers that hadn't the skies and all the horizon to keep watch over.

Just as well. Almariin has taken the girl on herself. Decided to do a bit of traveling away from Set'harta so that I may return to my routes. I next make for Thiria...

The woman sitting across from him visibly tipped her head in the way that intrigue had a tendency to do.

Join me. It may do you good to leave the ground behind for a time.

 

[Draedamyr]

A small smile formed on his lips at her protest. Here was Velaeri, who made the qualities the humans most despised in his kin seem distinctly mild. Like the short lived anger of a toddler to the battlefield rage of an orc berserker.

If anything, the smile only provided a window to the grief that lingered just beneath the surface. Draedamyr had not thought himself above taking on a pupil. His failure to recognise the streak of pride and anger within the man had been absolute.

When the offer came he seemed to mentally emerge from the contemplation that kept dragging him under. Thiria. The floating city. He wouldn't even have thought it a reality had she not described it to him before. They kept themselves hidden from the world and were very protective of their location.

I would like that very much.

"I would ask to finish my drink first if they had but.a half-decent wine," he said out loud, casting a disparaging look at his cup.

"Fucking elf," someone murmured. Draedamyr wasn't in the mood to respond. Instead he just laid out some coin on the table.

 

[Velaeri]

Good.

Mood lightened, the hooded woman quietly stood from her chair, Follow the trail from the north of the town up the mountain. When you reach a fork, take the left path, I'll be waiting for you on the second ledge.

"Didn't ya like the ale, Miss?" the server was back. Velaeri gave her a silent look of consideration before turning her gaze back to Drae, Drink's on you.

And without a word she stepped around the woman and made her way out of the tavern.

"Your friend doesn't say much," said the woman to the elf, "or drink much for that matter."

 

[Draedamyr]

Draedamyr was going to have to part with coin for two cups of the watery, bitter stuff. He would have spent a hundred times that for a good bottle of wine and not felt even slightly put out. He didn't live off land like so many of the world did. Moving from city to city he always exchanged coin for food, or at least ingredients.

"She is in a fowl mood today," he said by way of explanation.

As he left one of the men missing teeth at the bar turned his head and gave him a once over. Draedamyr wasn't sure if he was focusing on the sword he buckled to his waist because he was thinking of trying to steal it or out of curiosity. If it had been the former the notion must have been dismissed because he remained at the bar as Draedamyr left.

"Got rooms here in the Gillyseed if you need one?" the barman called after him as he stepped into the doorway. Draedamyr was glad he didn't have to take them up on the offer. He rather preferred being without live.

The sign outside caught his notice. Shades on the road. More like peasants and their own shadows. He made a mental note regardless. There was no sign of her presence as he left the town so he simply followed her directions.

The wilderness always sounded so threatening at night. Even a fox or an owl could convince someone that beasts lurked. The truth was that beasts really did lurk in the darker corners of the world. Hopefully not near the road from the town. The townsfolk wouldn't have allowed a feral gryphon to nest so close.



Draedamyr rounded a rocky corner and finally saw her. He caught her plucking at her wing. Once he had said that he thought she must know the precise position of every feather on her body. Especially those that had dared move out of place. Draedamyr had received silence for several hours after that.

Holding his hands out wide, he made a sweeping bow.

 

[Velaeri]

Preening: not simply a habitual pastime, but a necessary art of the feather. It paid to care for one's self in such the way they might think themselves royalty. Velaeri was, royalty that is, but not in the way most people thought - though she treated herself just as well. The sun was high when Draedamyr found her and pouring down upon the beast who lounged upon an open cliff ledge of the mountain. From here she had a clear view of the town below and, now that he did as well, he could see she'd not been so far away after all.

The gryphon had smelled him and, yes, even heard him long before he appeared. Though he moved as an elf did, quiet like the dwellers belonging to the wood, her ears were keen and her senses well connected to the land. A broad, fat-feathered wing swept aside as she paused in her ministrations of cleanliness and tidiness, given to watchng the man with an expectant blue gaze as he stopped just short of the trees. History between them begged for a smart remark of her compulsive behavior to preen, but he bowed instead.

A far more appropriate greeting. If the gryphon could smirk, she would have.

Velaeri lowered her head in return, the polished gleam of her white and russet feathers catching a glimmer of gold in the sunlight, broken by the criss-cross of leather and brass that made up a harness. Drae would likely be relieved to see she wore it - he'd flown with her plenty of times and learned quickly enough the harness was a preferred source of security for the ride. To be fair, she'd never lost him in the air on purpose.

No words were spared from the Dawnbringer as she folded her wings and lowered herself to the ground to allow the elf to climb aboard. It was a routine between them after many years, the understanding of respect had been established long, long ago.

 

[Draedamyr]

The harness was always preferred. Not that it made a world of difference, but he much preferred having something to hold onto as tightly as he wished.

Scent was a powerful thing that wove through the mind, linking memories together. Being astride the great gryphon brought back many of them. He had so many that sometimes it could take a long meditation just to stitch them back together again.

He thought back to the first time they had met. He had been a young, impetuous elf. A refugee in a city of humans. He had tested her patience, struck by the sight of her and following her around the city. Despite having barely more than the clothes on his back to his name he had given a gift just as others from the city had.

There was the time she had returned when he had done what he had boldly declared on their first meeting and reclaimed many of his family's heirlooms. Reverie, the sword at his belt, had been in his father's grip when Melgroän had fallen. It had been with him for just a few days at their send meeting and he had been jubilant.

Hopefully the ride would be more serene than when they had descended from the skies to turn the Battle of Hannekbale.

"Your feathers do look resplendent in the midday sun," he declared, hand reaching through the reigns to brush against them. Please don't drop off the edge just to distract me, he thought to himself only.

 

[Velaeri]

It was curious, the way in which separate minds that had such a long history of familiarity could work parallel to one another and yet come to similar, if not the same conclusions. Or musings, as it were. Velaeri often recalled the day she first set a glaring gaze upon what had then been a young Draedamyr. She, too, had been young - but not in the same way as he. A God-Creature's life cycle was a complicated matter, even moreso when tied to the life of an ageless charge. Almariin had seen the Dawnbreaker reborn three times by then.

The gryphon's mind lingered in these thoughts as she stood again, wings gently stretching and flexing as she called upon the winds. Feathers catching in a growing current, Vela's ears tipped back to his remark, an inkling of prideful mirth to the soft chirrup she replied with. There would be no plunging off a cliff edge today - too many trees stood in her way for a clear glide. Instead she beckoned the strength of the wind to her whim, broad wings unfolding into a rhythmic churn not unlike the action of a farm maiden turning butter. Then, with the magic imbued to her very being, Drae would feel a familiar lightness overtake him as they rose into the air with every subsequent beat of wing.

A final gust pushed her upwards, billowing gilded feathers as they crested the highest peak of the mountain for open sky. Talons curling below, tail smoothly furling behind, she leapt forward into the current and rode it off above the range of forested stone below. Trees turned to vast swathes of endless green interspersed by roads like the etchings upon a dwarven shield. The specks of humans and creatures alike moved in the clockwork of ants, growing fainter as they rose higher towards the clouds. It was easy to understand for one such as she how getting caught up in the realm of men and mortals was beneath her, simply for the very fact that it actually was.

Such things as war and peace, love and hate, grief and joy could transcend to these heights, but she hoped that he might remind himself just how much they really impacted anything at all. Up here, it all meant very little. Perhaps she could afford him some semblance of peace for a time, even knowing he would eventually have to return to it all once more.

 

[Draedamyr]

Magic had always felt like a kind of ether just beyond their own existence to him. He could feel it, even if he couldn't bind it to his will like a true mage. Its flow could change like the weather and there were strong and weak currents. It always seemed to flow around her presence like the waves around the bow of a ship. Or the wind around the wings of a bird.

He didn't care that magic felt different around her. He cared that there was no room in his thoughts for anything but the wonder of being airborn; the wind itself seemed to drive them away. The landscape was a map to her. She could see her destination and just point herself towards it.

Clouds had, admittedly, turned out to be less wondrous than he might have expected. That he had discovered almost a century ago when they had sat low to the hills. In truth they were just a colder and wetter form of fog. He almost smiled at the memory.

He did smile in exhilaration. Even at his age he wasn't immune to it. The height that made him wonder how long it would take to fall. The rush when she turned height into speed as sought another current to follow. His pulse raced.

"I have never even laid eyes upon Thiria. Not even from a distance," he admitted gladly.