Closed The Light in the Shadow

Sometimes what is unwanted is exactly what is needed

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Not found on any map, Endrykas is a large migrating tent city wherein the horseclans of Cyphrus gather to trade and exchange information. [Lore]

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The Light in the Shadow

Postby Taurina on December 14th, 2017, 2:36 am


Late Afternoon of the 40th of Winter 517


Her heart was heavy and she had no reason to give for why. If anything her heart should have been light. Light as a feather in the gentle breeze of the day. Not that the breeze was gentle nor feathers light. Not during these winter days. Not during the entirety of what had been this year.

Morwen was gone. By now this was well known. If any of her people remained anywhere it was likely by miracle or because some other deity had taken pity upon their forsaken souls. Humans were cruel beasts who weld their swords without mercy, without justice. Blaming a people group for something they could no better control than those who slaughtered them.

Taurina felt for the Vantha. She knew what it was like to be in that place of forsakenness. She had felt that weight of abandonment ever since her fall. In those early days she had felt betrayed by her god. She had wept for him to come to her. For him to make right what had been turned wrong. He had not come. He had not spoken. Anger had come then, but someone had warned her away from letting her heart become hard with hatred.

That man was the only reason she had not forsaken her god as she felt he had forsaken her. The only reason she had been able to lift up her head once more and start on a path towards purpose and belonging. That man was gone now. Oh how she wished he was not. How she wished he could see her now. See what progress she had made. See how far she had come. See the family she now called her own, the career she was building for herself, and the future she might soon, should she be so lucky enough, take claim of.

The Ethaefal missed him sometimes. Her old fisherman. It was not as though she had loved him. Not in the way one ought to love the person who had saved their life. She might have said he had been like a father to her, but he had not even really been that. More like a dear friend, though she could not recall ever treating him as such. She regretted that. She regretted having not shown him more of her gratitude towards him before he passed into Dira’s expectant arms. If she could do it all again…

Taurina knew she should want to do it all again. To be able to go back and say all the things she never said. Treat him as the friend he was to her rather than as a thing she simply tolerated because he was all she had. He had loved her like the daughter he never been able to have. She knew that now. After spending over a year among the Drykas and having a family take her in so that she might call them her own, she knew that. It just had taken her far too long to figure that out. Her chance had been missed and though she should wish to go back and change things so that she might do right by him, she would not. Not for all the glory in the world would she once more fall and enter back into that darkness that had consumed her mind during those first days.

Why these heat filled winter days brought back the fisherman she did not know. Maybe it was the lack of water, lack of fish, that in some twisted way brought him back to her. It would have made him so terribly sad to see the land like this. Taurina wondered what the little island he had called home for so many years looked like now. Had the waters dried up? The oceans pulled back so more beach than ever before was revealed? What did the Konti seers see for their future? Was this grand land that had survived through so much trial finally reaching its end? Taurina worried it was. She worried that these were her home’s finally days. The final breaking point.

When she looked around, watched her people struggling, all Taurina could feel was heartbreak. Heartbreak for this home she had known for lifetimes upon lifetimes. This home that she had been born to, grown up within, and come back to. The land of her family. The land of striders and the souls they carried within them. Their lives were not easy lives. They were never going to be easy lives. Not even when the seasons were made right and hunting turned easy. The sea of grass was brutal and was always going to be that way. Only, now it was more so. Now when one looked around they saw life brought to its end. Green grass turned brown. Once soft mud turned to cracked clay. The rivers had dried, animals scattered, and Syna’s light was relentless in its blaze. It was a nightmare turned reality. Yet the people toiled on.

There was bravery in them really. Outsiders might have called it stubbornness or stupidity. All Taurina saw, however, was unrelenting bravery and a fire that would not go out. She admired them for it. She aspired to be like them, her people.

She was going to see one of them now in the low light of the afternoon, passed the warmest part of the day. The Ethaefal had met him once before, last season, during a session at the Lilacwind pavilion. One of her first that she had felt confident enough to do herself. It had been a fairly simple job, just bands of varying thickness inked in skin to represent those who had become of importance in the man’s life. Taurina did not know all of the story for she had not asked and he had not told. She had been too focused on not marring his skin for life and he had not seemed the talkative sort anyway. What she did remember of him though was his name. His name and his work, which was why she journeyed to see him now.

Wymez Brokenspear lived on the outskirts of the Ruby clan. Taurina had remembered that much. Where exactly she was unsure of as the city was constantly changing, people constantly moving themselves about. Others would be able to tell her when she got close enough, however. The Drykas always knew those around them. Word of mouth was how most news spread so it made sense that that was a way in which one could find what or who they searched for. Taurina was quite confident that once she got close enough he would be easy to find. At least she had his name which had not been the case for the last man she had searched for, and he was Drykas which made the chances of finding him that much more likely.

It had been maybe a bell or so since leaving the Lilacwind pavilion on Starfire. Somehow the stallion still walked with a bit of a spring in his step. Surely he was tired for the heat wore on everyone and everything. Yet he kept going, kept preserving, kept asking to be given more freedom. The Ethaefal did not give it to him. She did not wish for him to wear himself out. She worried for him. She worried for them all, but she really worried for Starfire. If she lost him… that thought was never allowed to be finished. Just the beginning of that thought was enough to send her heart thundering in her chest and chills down the whole of her being no matter how hot it was.

“Wymez Brokenspear? Ruby Clan?” Taurina questioned a fellow Drykas she had come upon once reaching the outer rim of the Ruby clan, searching, acquaintance, business.

The woman with raven black hair tied up with wraps of vibrant red was pleasant as she directed Taurina towards her destination. There was a warning on the woman’s lips to be careful, that he was not one to take kindly to outsiders, but Taurina did not heed it. She was not an outsider. Not anymore.

She had been, once, and most of Endrykas knew of her by this point. The one whose form changed when day turned to night. It marked her as other, as one who was once an outsider. Yet Starfire and the wrap of white woven into her braids marked her as Drykas, as one who belonged. So Taurina continued on, unafraid and unapologetic in who she was, until they reached the tent of the one for whom she searched.

Common | Pavi | 'Thoughts'

User avatar
Taurina
Lost in the Stars
 
Posts: 411
Words: 752473
Joined roleplay: January 18th, 2016, 4:18 am
Race: Ethaefal
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Medals: 5
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The Light in the Shadow

Postby Taurina on April 27th, 2018, 5:23 pm


Self-Grade


Experience
  • Interrogation: +1

Lore
  • Taurina: Feels she was forsaken by Leth, does not forsake him
  • Old Fisherman: A dear friend rather than like a father
  • Taurina: Has regrets but wouldn’t go back
  • Wymez Brokenspear: Of the Ruby Clan
  • Taurina: Unafraid and unapologetic in who she is

User avatar
Taurina
Lost in the Stars
 
Posts: 411
Words: 752473
Joined roleplay: January 18th, 2016, 4:18 am
Race: Ethaefal
Character sheet
Storyteller secrets
Plotnotes
Medals: 5
Featured Character (1) Featured Thread (1)
Guest Storyteller (1) Overlored (1)
2016 Mizahar NaNo Winner (1)


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