Like rope on a stallion's neck Or hope in a poor man's chest Everything that's broken had to be. Or like paint on the northern lights Restraint in a lovers eyes The perfect pitch of broken harmonies. My, oh my, god broke sunset on the sky. - D. Schmidt. Timestamp: 10 Winter 514 AV Snow lay thick on the ground and shadows grew out from the feet of the trees, drawing lines through the daylight. A creature of it crouched just beyond the fence line, pine colored horns glittering as they curved back from his temples. Pale brown hair was in need of cutting and spilled into his face, still not managing to obscure the frown he wore. On the other side of the fence milled a dapple grey Windrunner outfitted with the tradtional Drykas yvas. Vega was Caelum's oldest friend and a large, strong horse at that. He had accompanied the ethaefal from one far flung corner of the world to another and was content to nose through the snow while Caelum brooded over animal tracks. In fact, Vega might have had a rather resigned air. Caelum held his hand over the tracks and spread his fingers to measure. In his mind's eye he saw a different set of tracks in a very different piece of the world, imprinted into a snowfall long melted beneath the tides of time. Those tracks had belonged to a dire wolf harassing the community of the now dead Denval. A Priest of Rak'keli had shown him the tracks and taught him how to identify them mere hours before they had rushed to save that same wolf's victims. It had been the early hours of Caelum's conflicted relationship with the goddess Nikali and the priest had gone to great lengths to help teach him how to use what were sometimes the most unusual of tools in the effort to heal. As a man who had spent the majority of his life back on Mizahar traveling, the dust of a thousand roads biting at his heels and those of Vega's as well, he had learned how to do a great many things with very few materials or assistance. All of that had changed since he had come to Riverfall. Now there were things, lots and lots of things. There were horses and herb harvests and buildings and people. People. There were lots and lots of people. People he cared about and worried over and felt responsible for on one level or another. People he couldn't leave, wouldn't leave, when he might walk away from all of the things. Though, if he was honest with himself, walking away from Alements and all of the hopes he had used to build it might be a great deal harder than he wanted to admit. Unraveling to his feet, Caelum scowled at the wolf tracks -- they were definitely not dire, being far too small to belong to such a nasty beast -- and then turned to jump the fence back into the pasture. Snow crunched as he landed on the other side in a single, fluid motion and whistled to Vega as he turned towards the Sanctuary. He did not mount, but walked instead, the horse happy to amble along beside him after their rather fast-footed run. Alements was being run today by his employees, Caelum having taken a rare day off in order to lend a hand at the Sanctuary's Healing Clinic that morning and then to, well, wander off with Vega into the wind. He did that now and again, set out alone to chase after or perhaps to run from whatever was deviling him. And it wasn't, really, that he felt deviled this time. Quite the opposite. But no matter what way you looked at it, Aoren Skycrown had definitely gotten under his skin. A short while later Caelum walked loose-hipped through the Sanctuary's gates and into the courtyard, trailed by his Windrunner and aimed at the stables. |