New Ground, New Start (Solo)

[Colt]

1st of Winter, 511 AV As every morning, Khasr awoke before dawn, but today he instantly regarded that as a bad move. “It’s petching freezing!” he muttered under his breath as he tried in vain to regain warmth that had been lost overnight. He wriggled in his bedroll, but his body remained resiliently cold. He sighed, then got out with a growl and slipped quickly into his clothes. With the complete silence that came from routine practice, he gathered his belongings and slipped between his sleeping kin to the pavilion entrance. The night still held fast, doing its best to suppress the hint of grey forming at the horizon. The stars were bright jewels in the sky, and though crickets and cicadas ground out their eerie melody the creatures of the dark had long since settled down. Syna would step to her throne in twenty minutes at absolute latest, and the world was preparing. Khasr took a deep breath of frigid air, making his lungs feel like they were collapsing, and took up a walk towards the outskirts of Endrykas. He felt the heat radiating from each of the pavilions as he passed, and kept his pace slower than normal to stall entering the open grassland’s inevitable chill. He was feeling good. He didn’t know why, but his feet felt a bit lighter. His habitual hate was absent, leaving only a layer of calm. It usually would have left him disconcerted, but such feelings had been occurring more and more recently, and he suspected that in the future such things would become normality. The tents thinned, and soon their edge came into his sights. He shifted the javelin quiver at his shoulder and picked up a slightly faster speed as he crossed the open space between the outskirts and the wilderness, but stopped when he came to the wall of grass. There was a parting between the stalks, a large one, and fresh. It had been made by something large, either a horse or zibri judging by the obvious location, and a quick print search revealed it to be the first. Khasr eyed it, then slipped after, curiosity piqued.

[Colt]

The trail couldn’t have been older than an hour, though he suspected it to be even less than that. He wondered who would be up and about at such an early hour besides himself. Was this someone perhaps starting a new habit, or simple insomnia? He hoped it was the latter, but didn’t jump to conclusions. Whoever it had been wasn’t even trying to hide their path, leading him to assume that they didn’t know very much about the grasslands. They had been going rather slowly, too; Khasr was gaining. He slowed, sinking into a low stance and turning his eye to his own path, cautiously stepping over dry leaves and grass. He suspected that in the daytime he would be making just about a much noise sneaking as he did at a regular walk, but the insects covered up a great deal. It was about five minutes before the nicker alerted him to how close he was in proximity to the horse, and maybe rider, he was tracking. He went to an even painstakingly slower pace, toiling over his silence as the veil of plants parted. The foliage gave way to a small patch of open ground that sloped slightly upwards to a hill, the crown of which was filled by a lonely tree, under which was a horse and next to which was a man. Quite a familiar man, as well. Khasr blinked, then eased into the clearing. The dirt offered much less opportunity of disturbance than the undergrowth, and he slowly straightened as he approached said man with a similar speed. The horse noticed him first, pricking its ears at him and snorting, causing its companion to turn. His strong features were lit with surprise that was quickly swallowed by caution. “Khasr,” he said, inclining his head. “Hadar,” Khasr replied.

[Colt]

The crickets seemed deafening as an awkward silence settled between them. The only movement was the three creature’s breath, appearing and disappearing as the hallmark white fog of winter. Any other time, any other place, Khasr would have been content to let the silence sit, but they were in his world now, and he was always in control in this world. He inclined his head as well. “This is a surprise,” he said coldly. Another awkward silence. Khasr arched an eyebrow expectantly. “Er… yes,” Uneasiness. Khasr kept the eyebrow arched, and after a few moments surprise flickered on his brother’s face again. “What?” the younger man immediately inquired. “What what?” Quick defensiveness. “Your surprise. What are you surprised about?” “I am surprised that you are calm.” Bluntness. “Why?” “You are usually not.” More bluntness. Khasr blinked, looking at his older brother with a bemused expression. Hadar looked right back, head slightly tilted and face ripe with untooled curiosity. The young hunter looked away after a heartbeat or two, shifting uncomfortably. “Why are you here?” “I woke up early, and—” “—couldn’t sleep because of the goddamn cold?” Pause. “Yes.” More surprise, amusement. “Me too,” he said, voice carefully impersonal. Hadar turned back to whatever he had been looking at on the other side of the hill, and Khasr trotted forward. He had been here before, and knew the sight that waited for him as he reached the top. The ground fell sharply away into a cliff, probably taking the length of four men to reach the ground at the bottom. From there the grasslands stretched to eternity and beyond, into the quickly brightening horizon.

[Colt]

The two sat there for some time, neither quite willing to break the chilled quiet of the season’s start. The sky was beginning to gain a hint of pink when the elder spoke. “I see what you like about it.” Khasr looked at him questioningly. “The Sea, the sky… the freedom.” Remorse. Hadar chuckled when he saw Khasr’s confused expression. “Leadership is a cage, brother. Perhaps the bars look pretty on the outside, but it is still a cage.” Great remorse. Another silence settled, a different silence. An easy silence. The first one Khasr could ever remember sharing with his brother. The stars were fading when Hadar stood and turned to retreat to Endrykas, causing his brother to gawk at his timing. He was leaving exactly at the best part of the morning! A swarm of mixed emotions surged within the young hunter as his pavilion’s Ankal patted his horse’s head. He moved to mount, and— “Wait,” Khasr said, catching the older man’s arm. He turned curiously, and Khasr looked to the east as the skyline became gold. The sun’s rays strengthened and crept into the world, and the grasslands were transformed. The light danced and leapt between the trillions upon trillions of frost crystals, and in an instant Cyphrus became wreathed in the glory of coultless shattered rainbows. Khasr felt his brother’s breath stop, and realized that his own had done the same. He looked back and caught Hadar’s brown gaze with his green one. No words passed between them; only slight nods, and the Ankal was on his horse and heading to Endrykas while his hunter kin plunged deeper into the glittering grass.

[Lariat]

Khasr

Experience:

Observation: 1 xp
Rhetoric: 1 xp

Lores:

Maintaining Composure

Comments

If you have any questions just send me a pm!